


Old Beginnings

by Ohorikoen



Category: The West Wing
Genre: AU, Angst, Drama, F/M, Humor, Political Campaigns, Romance, pre-administration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-18 14:18:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 37,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7318633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ohorikoen/pseuds/Ohorikoen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU pre-administration story about what could have/should have happened between Josh and Donna before they made it to the White House.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is another story that I wrote a few years ago that I'm just getting around to posting now. Thanks in advance for reading! Hope you like it.
> 
> EDIT: This is a multiple chapter story but AO3 is being a douche and won't let me mark it as such, but the story has 8 chapters. Thanks.

February 1998

Wow! So that just happened.  She could barely believe that she actually got the job.  A job that didn’t even exist until 5 minutes ago.  She wished she could call her mother right now just to gloat a little – See, Mom.  You always thought that my constant babbling and over sharing made people think that I was a little flakey, but not this time.  This time Josh Lyman thought I was charming and quirky enough to give a job to.  And he should know cause he was – 

Ah crap. 

It was at this point that she finally realised that she had no idea what Josh Lyman actually did for the campaign.  She knew she had just somehow managed to get herself hired as his assistant, but beyond that, what his duties were, let alone what was in her job description was completely beyond her.

Okay, Okay.  This wasn’t a problem, she could find out the answers to these questions easily.  All she needed to do was a little research and if there was one thing that she was good at it, it was researching things.  Quietly, she made her way over to an unmanned computer to do a quick internet search on Josh Lyman. 

Joshua Lyman....36 years old...worked for Hoynes, left to work for the Bartlett campaign...political genius...speciality in campaign strategies....

Feeling a lot more secure now that she understood what a political strategist was, she decided to concentrate on what her duties were.  Well, answering the phone for one.  That seemed pretty clear to her.  Managing his schedule should be another, which by the piles of scrap paper with dates and times scrawled over them littering his desk, indicated he was not the best at managing his appointments.  Which was a good thing really because it meant that he needed her to help manage his work, and as long as she was needed she’d have a job.  Okay, so more of a volunteer position because she was missing the one thing that made a job a job, you know, receiving money in return for her services.  But she was very confident that once she proved her worth, she would be on salary in no time.  She wasn’t lying when she told him she could be very valuable to him.

With a deep breath, she psyched herself up to tackle the overwhelming pile of junk that was passing for his office.  Wow, this place was a mess.  What did they say about a cluttered desk being a sign of a cluttered mind?  She hoped it wasn’t true in this case, because if Governor Bartlett was going to make it to the White House, he was going to need all the help he could get from Josh Lyman.

Although she was probably the last person to judge the clarity of someone else’s mind.  After all she had how many majors in the two years she actually attended college?  Plus, she had just drove hundreds of miles in her old beat-up rust bucket she called a car to help get a relatively unknown man elected president.  If she was a little stronger, her mind might even let her think about the 3 years she spent supporting a man who, it turned out, wouldn’t return the favour in the end. 

But she didn’t have time for self-flagellation now, she had a job to do and a man to convince that he hadn’t just made a horrible mistake by hiring her.

All right, where to start? The files teetering precariously on the corner of his desk or the pile of phone messages clustered in a bunch near the phone, all seemingly unreturned.   

“Well, first I’ll need some index cards,” she huffed.

*****

He wondered, almost immediately, if he had made a mistake.  He was the type of guy to go with his gut, his primitive instincts, and after talking to her everything inside of him screamed, “Yes, you need her.”  He hoped that this need his body screamed of was work related because he refused to turn into the type of man who hired an assistant based on how she’d look when bending over to file.  After so many years in politics, he was very familiar with that kind of guy, but he knew his parents had raised him better and he hoped that his many years in Washington had not broken down his integrity the way it had for so many others. 

He could almost see her from his position near Sam and CJ, only half-paying attention to their conversation, adding an occasional, ‘k’ and ‘yeah’ so they thought he was listening.

He couldn’t be 100 per cent sure, but from this angle, it looked like she might be...cleaning this office?

Curious, he tried to crook his neck so he could get a better view.

“What ya looking at there?” CJ’s voice broke into his thoughts.

“Hmm,” he muttered back.

“I said what are you looking at?” CJ repeated.

“Nothing, just looking, you know, taking a lay of the land, surveying my domain.”  He hoped that would placate her.

“Oh, okay.  Cause I thought you were breaking your neck trying to catch a glimpse of the extremely young, extremely pretty blonde girl rummaging around your office, but you were only taking a lay of the land so I guess I’m wrong, silly old me.”

Sometimes he hated how perceptive CJ could be.

“Yeah, who is that?  A new volunteer?  I don’t remember seeing her before.” Sam interjected into the conversation.

“What, are you in charge of welcome baskets?”  Josh offered, hoping to divert the conversation to Sam and away from his new assistant.

“Sam, be quiet and you,” CJ pivoted and turned towards Josh, “stop trying to avoid the question.  Who is that girl?”

“My new assistant?”  Instead of sounding authoritative, the words came out more as a question seeking permission.

“And who hired her?” CJ demanded.

“Me?” Again, the words came out weak.  

“Really,” CJ mused.

Josh sensed that he needed to start asserting his authority before CJ permanently took the upper hand, not only in this conversation, but in their overall working relationship.

“I’m a very busy man I’ll have you know CJ.  A very busy, and powerful man, so yeah, I need an assistant to help organise my busy schedule, which is really a plus for the campaign because the less I have to worry about petty stuff like returning phone calls and reading memos the more I can focus my brilliant mind on coming up with a strategy to get the Governor elected.”  

“Wow, well, all I heard was, ‘Blah, Blah, I’m a big arrogant jackass’”, CJ fired back.

“I’m walking away from you now, good-bye, CJ,” with that parting shot Josh headed back in the direction of his office.

Leaning against the doorframe, Josh watched Donna organise his office in way that obviously made sense to her, but to him all he could see were rainbow coloured index cards scattered around the room.

“What ya doing there Donna?”

“Trying to make sense of all these...things you have lying around higgledy-piggledy.” She puffed out, blowing a wisp of hair away from her eyes.

“I’m sorry, did you just say ‘higgledy-piggledy’?” He laughed.

“It’s a word, Mr. Lyman.”

A look of displeasure crossed his face, “Okay, now that, that is not allowed, no Mr. Lyman.  It’s Josh, you call me Josh.  Never call me Mr. Lyman.”

“Okay, Josh.”  

“Good.  Now as much as I appreciate your cleaning skills, don’t worry too much about this mess, we’ll be travelling around so much with the campaign that we will hardly ever be in this office.”  

“Okay, so do you have a briefcase that you want me to organise, you know, put in your schedule and phone messages?”  She asked.

“No, no briefcase, I just have this backpack.”  Josh moved into the corner, picked up a dirty brown bag and proceeded to reveal its contents.  Stuck inside the bag were crumpled pieces of paper, which perhaps at one time resembled orderly files and an assortment of junk.

“Well, that is unacceptable.  No, I will have to work on that.  Put your bag on the table and I will work on creating a functional system so you don’t look like a college freshman with that bag.”

“Hey, what’s wrong with my bag? I’ve been carrying it for years.”  

“It reminds me of Pig Pen, you know from Peanuts, he’s one of Charlie Brown’s friends.  He goes everywhere with his dirty blanket, trailing a cloud of dirt in his wake, your bag,” she indicated with a wave of disgust with her hands, “is your dirty blanket.  It’s not appropriate for a man in your position of power in the campaign to be carrying a back pack.”

“Don’t you think that it’s a little inappropriate for you to be sassing me when we have only known each other for, like, 25 minutes?”

“Sass?  God Josh, how old are you that you think sass is a word that people still use in day to day conversations?”  In any other situation Donna would never speak to her boss in such a manner, in fact Donna had never spoken to any of her previous employers like this before, but there was something about Josh Lyman that, even in the short amount of time that they had know each other, stopped her from filtering herself.

“I will have you know that I have an excellent vocabulary, a 760 verbal score on the SATs type of vocabulary, so if I feel that the word sass is appropriate then I’m going to use it.”  While the tone of his voice may have sounded harsh, the smirk and dimples fighting to break out on his face let Donna know that he was more amused than angered by her so called ‘sass’.

With a mock bow Donna replied, “I apologise Josh, I did not realise I was standing in front of SAT verbal greatness.”

“Okay, smart ass; I need you to organise all the requests for meetings that are coming in for when we’re in South Carolina.  Also, I need you to read over the documents that just came in detailing the new campaign polling laws as they pertain to Florida since we will be heading there shortly.  Then I want you to talk to advance about putting you on the trip, tell them that you’re my assistant so they’ll need to make sure there’s enough room on the bus and that there’s a place for you to sleep,  if they give you a hard time just send them over to me.”

Donna was furiously writing down each task, determined to get everything exactly right. “Okay, anything else?”

“No, that’s good.”

“I’m on it and Josh, thank you so much for this chance.  I promise I’m not going to let you down.”  With that declaration, Donna took off through the labyrinth of desks heading over to find advance.

As she walked away, Josh felt more confident in his decision to hire her.  Yeah, she was really young, probably in her early twenties, and she didn’t have a college degree, but she was obviously focused and determined to do a good job.  For some reason her earlier comment that she would be valuable to him was playing itself through his head and he knew for some inexplicable reason that she was going to be more valuable than he could ever imagine.

*****

Two Weeks Later

*****

It was amazing what you could learn about a person in only two weeks when you spent 18 hours a day with them.  Things that Donna had learned about Josh:  the man ate more junk food than she thought was humanly possible, which was odd since he appeared to have quite a delicate digestive system as he was unable to handle more than 3 beers at once. He loved to bellow (her name in particular), he was unbelievably arrogant and when he smiled and the dimples made an appearance butterflies magically appeared in her stomach.

Things that Josh had learned about Donna: her real name was Donnatella, she had an unhealthy obsession with organising in general and index cards in particular, she openly stole food, she had a propensity for inane trivia and she possessed the most amazing blue eyes.

Things that they shared in common:  they both were tactile people; Josh always placed a hand on the small of Donna’s back as they walked, while Donna demonstrated her tactile nature through more violent means, by smacking Josh several times a day.  They both enjoyed flirting and bantering with each other, which might not be the most professional way for a boss and his assistant to communicate, but it worked for them.

When Donna came into the campaign office that morning, Josh had already arrived. Usually Donna was always in before Josh, but this morning she was helping CJ organise the last minute details for a fundraiser later on that evening.  As she removed her jacket to hang it up near her makeshift desk she noticed that there was an attractive petite brunette sitting in a fold out chair across from Josh in his new ‘office’. 

Donna couldn’t remember seeing or meeting this woman before, but there had been so many new people, new faces that even her impressive memory was having trouble keeping up. The one thing Donna could tell from the impatient look etched across Josh’s face was that he needed rescuing and fast.

With a perfunctory knock on the door, Donna stuck her head inside the room.  “Excuse me, Josh.  CJ needs to talk to you about tonight, something about the order of speakers not being what was originally agreed to.”

With a quiet, “thank god”, Josh nodded his head and tried not to dance a jig at the very welcome interruption.    “Thanks for coming by, Mandy; I’ll let you know what the plans are as soon as the Governor Okays them.”  Josh rose to his feet to escort Mandy out of the room.

“This is important Josh; the Governor can’t simply ignore the imaginary he’s sending to certain areas of the country just because he thinks they are not going to vote for him.”  She explained in an exasperated tone.

“Well, I’ll keep that under advisement.  I’ll talk to you later.”  As soon as Mandy was gone, Josh quickly closed the door and dropped back down into his chair, releasing a huge sigh of relief.

“Who was that?”  Donna questioned, extremely interested to know the identity of any person who could make Josh look this uncomfortable.

“That was Mandy. Mandy Hampton, she’s a consultant for the campaign.” 

“A consultant?  What kind of advice was she giving that could make you look like you wanted to throw up?”

“I didn’t look like that.” 

“Um, yeah you did.  You look exactly how you do when you drink too much, and your delicate system kicks in, like you may vomit at any second.” Donna explained calmly, enjoying the sight of Josh squirming in his chair.

“I don’t know why you think I have a so-called ‘delicate system’, I can handle my alcohol like a man, you know, in a very manly way,” he countered.

“Ok-ay.  While I would love to keep talking about your delicate system I’m really more interested in this Mandy person, so spill it.”  Donna had now taken over the chair that Mandy had been in moments earlier, showing no sign of leaving until her question was answered.

“You know I’m your boss, you should be showing me a little more respect.”

“Yeah, I’ll get to that later. Now Talk.”

“Fine.  Mandy is a consultant working for the campaign, who just happens to be my ex-girlfriend.”

“Josh, your voice got really high and squeaky at the end there, did you say ex-girlfriend?” Donna couldn’t stop herself from laughing at how awkward Josh was acting.

“You heard me.  Which brings me to a new duty being added to your job description, it is your responsibility to make sure that I am never left alone in a room with anyone unpleasant again, starting with Mandy,”  Josh solemnly explained.

With a laugh Donna earnestly said “Yes, Sir.  Next time I will throw myself in her path if she even looks in your general direction.”

“Leave my schedule and close the door, preferably with you on the other side.”

****

Later that same day, Sam strolled into Josh’s office.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“How’s the speech coming?”

“Okay, I guess. I mean Toby is ripping apart everything I wrote, but besides that, okay.  How are things with Donna?”

Slightly defensive Josh threw back, “Things?  What things.”

“You know things…general things.”  Sam clarified in a way that actually clarified nothing.

“I can’t imagine why Toby would have a problem with your writing when you speak so eloquently,” Josh replied sarcastically.

“Sometimes I wonder if you talked me into leaving a six figure job just so you could make fun of me every day.”

“Ah, so you have discovered my master plan, the whole getting a great man elected president was all a ruse so I could rag on you every day.” 

“I’m just going to ignore your meanness and focus on why I actually came over here.  The DNC says that it won’t be possible to…”

Josh interrupted full of anger, “Damn it, Sam.  We’ve been over this a million times with them already and they just keep dicking us around on this issue.  Those assholes are making things purposely difficult for us because you know they want Hoynes as the nominee.”

“Swearing in a federal campaign office is not acceptable behaviour, Josh.”  Donna suddenly interjected into the conversation.

“Stop eavesdropping!” Josh screamed back at her.

“Also yelling is another violation of the rules of common courtesy.”

“Donna!”  He practically roared back at her.

Completely ignoring his outburst Donna continued, “Josh, there’s a consultant here who wants to speak with you.  And no, not that one,” Donna laughed, “This one is male and very handsome.”

Feeling irritated, which Josh choose to blame on her interjecting herself into his conversation with Sam and not because it bothered him that Donna found a man handsome, he got up from his chair to greet his visitor.

“I’ll see him in a minute.  Can you get us some coffee?”

“That would be a menial task, Josh and as we discussed I don’t perform menial chores.  It is not in my job description.”

“Aren’t you afraid that one day I’ll just fire you?”

“No, not really.  I feel immune to your firing, almost impervious even.”

*****

The rest of the day passed in a blur as so often happened during the campaign, today everyone was doing last minute preparation for the huge fund raising/speaking engagement which was happening later on that evening.

“Josh, I’m going to head out and pick up your tux from the cleaners.  I’ll meet you back at the hotel, okay?”

“Hmm.”

“Josh, I’m heading out now and you have to be out of here in like an hour, max, if you are going to make it on time.”

“Donna, I don’t even want to go so why would I care if –“

Now, Donna had seen some odd things from Josh during their brief relationship, and obviously, she had yet to learn all of his quirks, but she was pretty sure that hiding underneath his desk was not typical Josh behaviour. 

“Josh?” She began slowly, “What are you doing down there?”

“Shhh...”

“Wha -?”

“I need to see Josh,” Mandy snapped as she stormed into Josh’s office.

Well at least the hiding made sense now.

“Hello, ma’am,” Donna put on her most dazzling smile, “Josh isn’t here right now but please feel free to have a seat in our beautiful and ergonomically designed waiting area.”  Donna said with a mock wave of her hands in the general direction of the flimsy folding chairs outside of Josh’s office.

“Where is he?” Mandy demanded.

“I think he’s already on his way back to the hotel to get ready for the event. I was actually on my way out as well to pick up his tuxedo.”

“Fine. Tell him I need to see him, block out some time tonight in his schedule for me.”  As quickly as hurricane Mandy stormed in, it stormed right back out. 

Donna watched Mandy make her way of the campaign office.  “Okay there big baby, it’s safe to come out now.”

“She’s really gone?” Josh slowly peeked his head out from under his desk, afraid that Donna might be playing a trick on him, the way you do with your scared friends when watching a horror movie.  You know, they ask if the ‘scary part’ is over and you say ‘yeah’, so that they open their eyes right at the moment where the psycho masked killer sticks the knife into a helpless victim.

“Yes, Josh.  She’s gone. Real mature of you Josh, diving under your desk like that, is that how you handle all potentially uncomfortable meetings?  Is this what it will be like in the White House every time you have to talk to a Republican, you’ll be hiding under your desk or is this a particular Josh foible reserved for ex-girl friends only?”  She mocked.

“First, I would never run away from a fight with a Republican, I get off fighting Republicans.  Second, Mandy is worse than a Republican so hiding was justified and finally, Mandy, at this exact moment, may not technically be...my ex-girl friend so to speak.”

“Not your ex?  But this morning you said she was your ex.  Was that a lie?”

“Not a lie really, more like wishful thinking” He supplied lamely.

“Oh My God Josh!  You are still with Mandy. She’s not your ex-girl friend, she’s your girl friend!  And you’re hiding from her?” Donna asked incredulously.  “What’s your plan?  Are you just going to keep avoiding her until she finally gets fed up and dumps your sorry ass?”

“That was the general idea, yes.”

“Wow, that’s a solid plan Josh, if you were 16 years old!  I can’t believe you.  Is this how you end all your relationships?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”  

“As the layers that are Josh Lyman are peeled away I find myself more in awe of you every day.” 

“Go get my tux, Donna.” He ushered her out of the office. “We don’t want to be late.”

*****

The event went off perfectly.  Governor Bartlett’s speech was amazing, as she knew it would be with Sam and Toby working so hard on it the past week.  Now, nearing 1 in the morning Donna couldn’t wait to fall into her bed, or more accurately gather some pillows and a spare blanket to sleep on the floor in Margaret’s room.

“Donna!”

Not now she thought, as much as she loves working with Josh and loves seeing him in a tuxedo more, she had actually met her Josh quota for the day and wanted nothing more than a quick shower and a hard hotel room floor.

“Not now Josh, it’s time for bed.” She continued walking away from him towards the room she shared with Margaret.  “You remember that thing called sleep? Well, I going to try to get a few hours of it, so whatever thing you think it so important can wait until tomorrow.”

She reached her hotel room door and slide in the electronic key.  She saw the reassuring green light flash and she pushed her way into the room.  To her surprise, which in a way was not surprising at all given Josh’s basic lack of understanding when it came to personal boundaries, he followed her into the room and plopped down on the bed.

“No, please come in.  Can I offer you a beverage?” 

“No, I’m good.”  He either missed the sarcasm in her voice or chose to ignore it.

It was becoming pretty clear that Josh was not going anywhere and Donna was starting to feel irritated at his incessant need to invade her personal time.  “So, Josh, what do you want to talk about?  What is so important that it can’t wait the 4 hours I was so selfishly going to use for sleep?”

With quicker reflexes then she would have given him credit for, Josh launched himself off the bed to stand directly in front of her.  He looked into her eyes for longer than he should, suddenly aware of a new tension, or electricity between them.

Donna felt her heart bounce up into her throat at the intensity in his eyes.  Why was he standing this close? Why was he staring at her?  She knew she should step back, create more distance between them or at least look away, but she couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from him either.

“We did good tonight.”

“Yeah.”

“I mean everyone: CJ, Toby, Sam, Leo, The Governor.”

“Yeah.”

“Your eyes are the clearest shade of blue I’ve ever seen,” he almost whispered.

“Yours are brown,” she offered lamely.

“Yes.”  Involuntarily his hand came up and gently touched her flushed cheek.

“Josh?”  It came out more as a question, because she wasn’t sure what was happening right now.  But thankfully or not, depending on your point of view, Margaret choose this exact moment to return to the hotel room.

“Oh, I’m sorry am I interrupting?  Do you want me to come back later?”  Margaret offered

“Yes.”

“No.”

They both answered simultaneously. 

“No, it’s fine.  I was just on my way out.  I’ll see you tomorrow.  Bye Donna.”  

Without a look back Josh quickly exited the room leaving Donna feeling more confused than she thought was humanly possible.

TBC...


	2. Chapter 2

His legs carried him away from her room on autopilot; he wasn’t even sure what floor he was on at this point, let alone what floor his room was on?  How could he have been so stupid?  What was he thinking following her back to her room and making some cheesy comment about the colour of her eyes?  He should be focusing on forming a strategy to win this campaign, not using pick-up lines on his assistant.

He entered the elevator and pushed the ‘L’ button, thinking that if he returned to the lobby he could probably catch up with Sam or Toby.  If he could just talk about the campaign for a while, he was sure he could make himself forget whatever it was that happened in that hotel room minutes earlier.

When he exited the elevator, he nearly slammed right into Barry Goodwin from the DNC.

“Careful there Josh.”

“Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”

“You’re coming back down here?  I thought you left earlier and were calling it a night.”

“No, I was just walking a friend to her room.”

“Ah, yes the blonde.  She’s your...friend?”

“My assistant.”

“Yes, your assistant.”  He said with a sly smile, as though he was in on some kind of inside joke.

The way Goodwin said the word friend and assistant made Josh want to punch the smile right off of his face, but that would probably not be the most effective way to ingratiate himself or the campaign with the DNC.  Goodwin may be an ass, but he was an ass that they were going to need if they had any hope of challenging Hoynes for the party’s nomination.

“Yes, she’s my assistant.  She’s really smart.  She’s an excellent researcher, and she somehow manages to keep me organised.  She is very valuable.”  For some reason, Josh felt the irrational need to prove to Goodwin that Donna was good at her job.

“I bet she is Josh,” Goodwin offered with a raise of his eyebrow.

How dare this asshole stand in front of him and suggest that Donna was only around so he could get her in bed.  But wasn’t that what you were trying to do screams his subconscious, wasn’t that why you went to her room?  Wasn’t that why you complimented her eyes?  Wasn’t that why you touched her?  To get her into bed, to turn her into exactly what Goodwin thought she was.

Disgusted with himself, Josh walked away without saying a word to Goodwin.  He left the hotel through the front lobby, desperate for some fresh air to help clear his head.

He knew he didn’t follow Donna back to her hotel room hoping for sex.  He just wasn’t ready for the night to be over yet; not ready for her to return to her room and him to his.  He had a lot of fun at the event, introducing everyone to Donna, explaining everyone’s roles to her; he had had fun, something that he hadn’t experienced in a long time.  Usually these things were work, work appearing interested in a story he had heard a hundred times before, work remaining civil to certain members of the DNC, but tonight, with Donna it didn’t feel like work, so even when the event was officially over he wasn’t ready to say good night to her.  

Really the idea that Josh had planned some sort of seduction was giving him too much credit, Josh wasn’t that smooth when it came to women, with every previous girlfriend he more or less fell into those relationships by accident, with Mandy it was –

Mandy.  Maybe he was the kind of guy Goldwin was suggesting because for the first time this evening Josh remembered that he still had a girlfriend.  While the relationship may be over in Josh’s mind, it wasn’t in Mandy’s and it wasn’t fair to keep avoiding her.  He would actually have to behave like a grown-ass man and end the relationship instead of waiting for her to dump his sorry ass.

God, what must Donna think?  That he was the type of guy who had no problem cheating on his girlfriend obviously.  Plus, Donna just left a relationship with a douche bag who took advantage of her opening and trusting nature the last thing he wanted to do was complicate things.  She came to the campaign to work on her confidence and find herself not deal with unwanted attention from her boss.

Josh stopped walking and headed back towards the hotel.  Nothing more could be accomplished tonight so he decided that first thing tomorrow he’d finally have the conversation with Mandy and work on establishing a more professional relationship with Donna.

 

 

*****

The next day Donna entered the campaign office determined to forget all about last night.  Her plan? Simply pretend it didn’t happen.  Granted Sun Tzu probably hadn’t included this practically strategy in ‘The Art of War’ but given the choices in front of her it was the most palatable solution.  While she was attracted to Josh, this simply wasn’t the time to start a relationship of any kind.  Plus, Josh was still technically in a relationship with Mandy, which didn’t say a lot for his character right now, that he could do, whatever it was that he did last night in the hotel room with her while still in a relationship.

However, Donna liked working with Josh, he might be arrogant, cocky, and unbelievably unorganised but he was a great teacher and she had already learned so much from him about the political world in the last 2 weeks that she didn’t want to risk ruining their professional relationship just for a campaign fling. 

Now she just needed her brain to tell her body to repress any physical reactions she may have around him.

When Josh wandered in, she was determined to act nonchalant about the previous evening’s events.  Before he even had a chance to sit down she was giving him a rundown of his schedule for the day along with his phone messages.

“And a good morning to you too, Donna.”

“What?”

“Well,  once the sun rises and people see each other for the first time the traditional greeting is ‘good morning’, so I repeat, ‘good morning, Donna’.”

Oh, so maybe things wouldn’t be weird.  Josh seemed to be acting normal, well, normal for Josh; so maybe forgetting last night wouldn’t be so hard after all.  

However, the idea that she was in the clear completely evaporated when she foolishly raised her eyes to meet his to return his good morning greeting.  Okay, mental note: avoid looking directly at Josh because your knees literally go weak. Damn it, she berated herself for sounding like a cliché romance novel heroine.

Why did he have to stand so close to her last night?  Why did he have to touch her? 

“Donna?”

“What?  Oh, sorry, good morning, Josh.”  She smiled, hoping it comes across as natural. 

“So...my messages?”  He prompted

“Yeah, so Hiller called about the Florida event, he said he will call back later.  Umm, Mandy called –“

“Mandy called?”  He echoed, he had intended to speak to Mandy this morning but she had already left for Florida.

“Yes, Mandy called and said that she is planning; let me see what I wrote down, she is planning a ‘fete’ with some exclusive donors and the Governor...”

“A fete?” 

“It’s French Josh, it means party or celebration.” 

 “I know what it means.”  

“Well then stop interrupting me so I can give you your stupid phone messages.”  

“Sorry.  Please continue.” 

“So as I was saying, Mandy is planning a fete,” she put extra emphasis on the word, “and is requesting your presence so she wanted to make sure your schedule was open.”

“Yeah, okay.  Leave the message and I will call her after.”

Yesterday Josh was hiding under his desk avoiding Mandy and complimenting Donna on her blue eyes but today he was prepared to attend a small intimate party with his ex-girlfriend or was it current girlfriend?  So this was how he’d make his feelings known, Donna thought.  Very passive aggressive of him, but the message had been received loud and clear, he would rather be with Mandy then figure out whatever was going on between them.

The rejection stung, even though she had made up her mind not to pursue anything with Josh the thought that she could be so easily brushed aside hurts.  Her subconscious mocked her, ‘you’re a silly, quirky girl; men don’t want to settle down with silly and quirky.’

Shaking her head to try to ward away the negative voice in her head, Donna resumed delivering the phone messages.

“Anyway, Toby called and wants you to stop by his office as soon as you can, he says it’s important.”

“What did he say it was about?”

Donna took the pink phone message slip, placed it next to her forehead, and closed her eyes.  “I see water.  Trees.  A man in a clown hat.”  She opened her eyes.  “However, since I am not psychic, I have no idea what Toby wants.  Although I think I may have just solved a crime.”

“So he didn’t say,” he asked completely deadpan.

“No,” she smiled softly. “But I would like to talk more about this fete, what does one wear?  Will it have a French theme; will you be wearing a beret...?  Josh, you know it’s not nice to walk away from someone who is talking to you,” she called after him.

“One day I may kill her,” he muttered to Sam who he passed on his way to Toby’s office.

“You will never find someone to replace her.  Find another person as sweet and genuine as Donna who is able to put you in your place and not take your crap?  Yeah, that is never going to happen.  You should be thanking the Gods on high that she wandered into your office in the first place.” 

Josh stopped abruptly midstride, “I know.  I wouldn’t be able to do half the things I do in a day without her.  She’s great at finding information that I can’t -”  

“That’s probably because you don’t know how to use a computer,” Sam interjected.

Josh continued as though Sam never spoke, “She’s great with people; she can get them to tell her things that they don’t want to.”

“That’s because she’s a genuine person, which is rare in our line of work.”  

Sam was right. Donna was genuine.  She was open and honest, he wondered if she would be able to keep her trusting personality intact or if she continued in politics would she become as warped and jaded as anyone else.  For some reason Josh didn’t think so, he imagined Donna staying the same no matter what.

He really should be more concerned at how quickly his dependence on her had formed.  For 36 years he functioned without her quite well.  Yet after two and a half weeks of working together he had already grown accustom to yelling her name and her appearing almost instantaneously.  Sometimes he yelled her name just to see how fast she could get to him.  He thought he should probably never tell her that, he didn’t think she’d find it as amusing as he did.  Deciding that he had already spent too much time worrying about something that he had promised himself last night he wasn’t going to think about: namely Donna, Josh continued on his way to Toby’s office.

*****

Once again, the day passed in a blur; the campaign stops in Georgia were all finished.  Not that they thought they had a real chance of playing in the south but when you campaign for president, you were campaigning to be the president of all of the states, not just the ones that agree with your polices.

From the outside looking in, the campaign office appeared empty with all the volunteers and staff having already left or made their way back to the hotel for the night.  Only the soft hum of a computer signaled that the office wasn’t completely vacant.  Donna sat at her computer trying to find a way to fit more meetings than were humanly possible into Josh’s schedule tomorrow.  She was staying late because the Governor and the rest of the campaign staff would spend one more night in Georgia, attending a very private, very exclusive black-tie event tomorrow evening while Josh and Donna would leave before the event for Florida.

Florida was big.  Big in electoral votes that was, and while the campaign was focused on the primary, their end goal was getting Bartlett elected president, so Florida would be a key battle ground state.  Although the state usually voted Republican, the DNC planned to unveil new policies in an effort to galvanize the state’s democratic voting base.

Donna was so engrossed in her work that she didn’t hear the telltale sound of footsteps indicating that she was not alone. Donna nearly jumped out of her chair when she felt a hand lightly touch her shoulder.

“Oh my God, Josh you scared me!  What are you doing here?  I saw you leave with Sam a few hours ago.”

“Jumpy there, Donna.  I did leave but I wanted to look over the primary delegate vote count again, what are you still doing here?”

“Trying to figure how you can be in three different places at once. “ She sighed.

“Well, you could clone me.”

“Oh God, imagine there being two Josh Lymans.  Heaven help me, I can barely handle the one I have now.” 

“Ha, ha, very funny.  Come on let’s go.”  He said with a nod of his head towards the door.

“Go where?”

“Out of here, we have both been here since before 7 this morning and it is nearly 11 so I would say that our work day is officially over.  Did you eat?”

Before she had a chance to decline his implied invitation, her stomach betrayed her with a loud growl.  

“So, obviously you haven’t eaten.  What do you feel like? Pizza? Chinese?  Your choice, whatever you want.”

He lied to her before when he said he wanted to look at the delegate vote count.  He had those numbers seared into his brain, really he was just trying to get some alone time.  He did return Mandy’s call and finally ended the relationship, while he would have preferred to break up in person, due to the campaign schedule he wasn’t sure when they would be in the same room again, probably at the so-called ‘fete’, but that hardly seemed like an appropriate time or place to break-up.  Josh went back to the campaign office because Sam was currently occupying his hotel room and while Sam was a let’s-talk-about-our-feelings type of guy, Josh was not.  He thought he could be alone at the hardware store turned campaign office, so he was surprised, but pleasantly so, to find Donna still hard at work.

“Pizza, I guess.  I’m too tired to even hold cutlery at this point let alone fumble around with chop-sticks.”

Donna turned off her computer and followed Josh out the door.  There was a little pizza shop on the same street as the campaign office so after a quick 2 minute walk Josh held the door open for Donna to enter the store.  After they have paid for their slices they wandered down to a picnic area set up next to the pizzeria. 

Silently they ate their pizza, both staring forward out into an empty field, seemingly focused on looking at anything but each other.  An unnatural quiet settled over them, they were not used to silence, their days were spent talking, to various people along the campaign trial and more importantly to each other.

Josh knew that he was responsible for this uncomfortable tension between them now so he thought he should be the one to speak first. 

“So, Florida tomorrow, have you ever been to Florida before?”  Granted it might not be the best opening line in history, but he just needed to get the conversation started, get them back to familiar ground.

“Huh?  Oh, Florida?  No, I have never been to Florida.  God, up until 3 weeks ago I had never left Wisconsin.”  

The unspoken reason or in this case person why Donna left Wisconsin in the first place hung between them.  Besides their first meeting when Josh coined the term, Dr. Free Ride, Donna had not supplied any additional information about her life before the campaign and in a very un-Josh like display of consideration he hadn’t asked her about it either.

“I know that I kinda gave you a hard time during your...job interview, but I really think that you did a brave things travelling all the way across the country to join a presidential campaign, most people your age are so apathetic when it comes to politics or trying to make a difference at all.  When I was –“

“Okay Grandpa, is this going to turn into, ‘when I was young we marched against Vietnam and walked up and down a hill in snow both ways to school’?” 

“First, Vietnam?  How old do you think I am? I wasn’t even born when the war started and I was like 13 when it ended. Second, I was trying to pay you a compliment, you’re always saying I need to be nicer, well this is me being nice so stop being a jerk and accept the damn compliment.”

“Sorry for implying that you’re old.  You are very young and energetic and virile,” she said with a wiggle of her eyebrows.  As she continued though, the playful expression on her face was replaced with a frown. “I guess I think that I don’t deserve a compliment, you said I was brave for leaving, but I don’t feel brave at all.  I feel more like a coward.”

 “A coward?”  Josh asked completely shocked, “How could you think what you did was cowardly?”

“I ran away, Josh.  I know that it was disguised in the noble call of getting the real thing elected president, but the truth is I ran away.  I know you think that Madison, Wisconsin is in a cosmopolitan location,” she added with a fake smile, “but it’s not, I would run into our mutual friends and I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing them and my family and know that they were probably thinking, ‘Poor Donna, her boyfriend cheated on her and took all her money, poor thing’.  I couldn’t stand to see the look of pity in their eyes, so I ran away.  If I was really brave I would have stayed in Wisconsin and reclaimed my life, but I took the easy way out.  I left. ”

Josh could hardly believe what he was hearing.  Josh made a mental note that when Bartlett was elected president and he was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff he was going to make sure that one of his first orders was for the IRS to send Dr. Free Ride a nice audit request. First, he’d need to find out the asshole’s real name but he wasn’t overly concerned with that small detail right now. 

“Donna, look at me,” and when she did he was stuck by how impossibly young she looked.  “I don’t know a whole lot about your life in Wisconsin, but what I do know is that there is nothing about you that is remotely cowardly.  So you decided to start a new life, so what?  Do you know how many people wish they could do what you did but they are too scared to try?  Do you?”

Donna got the feeling that Josh wasn’t asking a rhetorical question, “No, I don’t.”

“Well, I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I’ll just get you to research that tomorrow.”

And for the first time since they sat down to eat their pizza, Donna laughed.  Not a fake laugh, but a real genuine Donna Moss laugh.  

“Okay, so no more talk about being a coward. Ever.  Only happy Donna from now on. Take that as a direct order from your boss.”

“Josh, I don’t think you have the authority to dictate how I feel.  You can’t just order me to be happy.”

“Yeah, I think I can.”

“Why?”

 “Because I said so.”

Donna should be angry with Josh and his presumptive nature, as though he could just order her into a better mood, but to her pleasant surprise she did feel better about her decision to leave Wisconsin.  While she definitely wouldn’t characterise what she did as being brave, she didn’t think of herself as a coward anymore either.  She turned her head to look at Josh, she knew that it is not healthy to get your confidence from another person; she had already made that mistake once in her life, true confidence comes from within, but if Josh Lyman thought she was smart and brave who was she to argue? 

*****

When it happened she knew that she was completely at fault.  Although she could make the case that it was really Josh’s fault since she was so busy thinking about him that she wasn’t paying attention to where she was going.  And of all the people to crash in to it had to be Toby, not nice understand Sam, or fellow Sisterhood member CJ, no it had to be gruff, angry, Toby.  Well, it could have been worse she thought; at least it wasn’t Leo or the Governor.

“Oh my God, Toby, I’m so sorry.”  She started to move towards him, looking around helplessly for a towel or tissues of some kind.

Her apology appeared to be falling on deaf ears, not that she blamed him per se.  If she was the one standing in the middle of a busy campaign office with coffee plastered all over her clothes she probably wouldn’t be in the best mood either.

“Do you not look when you walk?  Damn it!” he swore.

Donna made another half-hearted attempt to help Toby, as though she could brush away the coffee from his shirt.  Instead, all she managed to do was knock the files out of his hands right splat into the pool of coffee that had accumulated at his feet.

“Donna, would you stop helping and get the hell away from me,” he practically roared at her.

Sitting in his office Josh was vaguely aware of some sort of commotion happening in the main room.  He could hear Toby yelling, but Toby yelling was not a new phenomenon so Josh continued to try to finish a few things before his needed to grab Donna and head out to the airport to catch their flight to Florida.  He was about to return a phone call when the identity of who Toby was ranting out became clear: Donna. Josh immediately jumped out of his chair and was about to explain to Toby in explicit terms why yelling at Donna was unacceptable when he was beaten to the punch.

“Toby!  Unless your mug was full of acid instead of coffee, stop yelling.  I know you have a change of clothes in your office and Ginger can reprint the documents that got wet.  Now stop being an ass to Donna.”   Without a backwards glance, Toby stalked back to his office.

Trust CJ to save the day.  

“I really am sorry.  It was my fault, CJ.  I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

“Well that may be true, but it doesn’t give Grumpy Bear over there the right to be a jerk.  Do you think you could find a mop or something to clean up the coffee off the floor, I don’t want anyone to slip and fall or anything.”    

“Sure, I think I saw a janitor’s closet downstairs.”  

Donna bounced down the stairs, walking down the hallway looking for the room labelled ‘Janitor’ when a hand grabbed her arm and yanked her sideways.  Before she could scream, a second hand was placed across her mouth.  She realised she was inside of a linen closet of some kind, the door closing behind her.  Angry and scared, she kicked backward, aiming at anything she could.

“Shit, that hurt.”  Josh’s voice emanated from behind her in a low grunt.  “Stop it.”

Pulling herself away from his grasp, she turned around to face him.  In the extremely small closet there was hardly room for one person, let alone two.  “What the hell are you doing?”  She demanded.

“I wanted to see if you needed any help finding a mop,” he whispered.

“You heard what happened with Toby?”

“He wasn’t exactly being subtle with his yelling and being an asshole and everything.  He wasn’t being very nice to you.”

“You’re not very nice to me sometimes either,” she lobbed back.

“Yeah, well, I’m your boss, bosses are supposed to be mean.”  There was that humour again that she found so hard to resist.

She smiled, “You’re very good at it then, being a boss, because you have the mean thing down pat.”

“Hmm,” is all he said before he slowly leaned down and softly brushed his lips against hers.  Then as though nothing happened, he moved her aside so he could exit the closet.

Donna continued to stand in the dark closet even after Josh left.  Her heart was beating as loud as thunder and she felt a shiver run through her body.  Taking a deep breath, she pulled open the closet door, grabbed the mop on her way out and made her way back up the stairs.  

When she walked back up the stairs into the main campaign room, Josh was nowhere to be found.  She made her way over to the coffee puddle and passed the mop around a few times.  

“CJ, did you see where Josh went?”

“He said he forgot something back at the hotel and he wants you to meet him there.”  

“Okay, thanks.”  Donna walked over to her desk to grab her purse.  On her way out the door, Toby suddenly loomed in her path.

“Umm, it has been brought to my attention that, perhaps earlier, I may have been a little abrupt with you, so if you felt that I was...abrupt, that was not my intention.”  Toby mumbled.

And that was probably the closest she would ever get to an apology from Toby.

“Toby, it was my fault.  I’m sorry I ruined your shirt and your files.”

With another unintelligible grunt, Toby ambled back towards his office again.

What a strange man, Donna thought, obviously a brilliant man, but still a strange man.  

*****

Donna knocked on the door to Josh’s hotel room, which was yanked open abruptly. 

“What took you so long?”  

Nice to see you too, she thought, “Sorry, I got waylaid.”

“By Toby?”

“I knew it! I knew that Toby wouldn’t apology out of the blue like that.  What did you say to him?  I can take care of myself, Josh.  I don’t need you to fight my battles, especially when I was the one in the wrong.” 

“Okay there, I have faith in your ability to fight your own battles.  I just thought Toby shouldn’t go around yelling at the volunteers, which technically is what you still are.  We’re going to have trouble keeping genuine people like you, let alone recruiting new people if it gets around that senior staff are jerks,” he explained.  “Now, I just have to grab my bag and we’ll leave for the airport.”

“Is that why you kissed me?  Because I’m genuine?” 

“I didn’t mean to kiss you.  The closet was smaller than I thought it would be.”

“So what you’re saying is that it was an architectural design flaw of a small closet which forced your lips on mine?”

“Exactly.” 

“Architectural design flaw?  Do you expect me to believe that the only reason you kissed me was due to a lack of space?” 

“Do you want me to apologize? Because if you want m--”

Suddenly, Donna pushed his shoulders against the wall and kissed him.  His mouth found her in return, heat radiating through his body.  With a stifled groan, he grabbed her shoulder, pulling her closer, slipping his tongue into her mouth.

Abruptly she stepped away from him, taking a second to catch her breath.

“Hurry up and get your stuff or we’re going to miss our flight.”

Without a look back she exited the hotel room.

 

TBC...


	3. Chapter 3

Florida was hot.  

In other news, water is wet.

Even in February, the heat felt oppressive.  Neither of them were used to this weather, not with Donna being from Wisconsin and Josh from Connecticut.

They had arrived only an hour earlier, silently walked to the rental agency and picked up their car.

If a more awkward car ride had ever occurred Donna didn’t want to know about it.  The hot and sticky air being pumped out through the vents did nothing to help ease the awkward tension between the car’s passengers.  For a rental car in Florida, one would think that air conditioning would be a standard feature on all models, but apparently not.

Donna tried to distract herself from the sweltering heat by running through the day’s schedule in her head, but no matter how hard she tried she could not stop thinking about what had happened in that hotel room only hours earlier.  She still wasn’t sure what compelled her to kiss Josh.  She just wanted to find out why he had kissed her in the first place and when he blamed the whole incident on a lack of square footage in the closet, she was so mad that she wanted to prove that he had kissed her because he wanted to.  That idea was immediately confirmed by Josh’s tongue in her mouth.  But as quickly as she had kissed him, she broke away as sanity restored itself in her head.  

What had she been thinking?  

Her thoughts had involuntarily gone to John, or as Josh so affectionately called him Dr. Free Ride.  When Donna found out that John had been cheating on her with a nurse on his rotation it felt like her heart has exploded inside her chest.  But John had told Donna it had meant nothing, he just couldn’t help himself, it had only been physical attraction between him and the nurse.  At the time, Donna thought that explanation was bullshit, but now?  For the first time in her life, standing in that hotel room with Josh, she couldn’t help herself.  Something, something primal maybe, had taken over and the next thing she knew she had pushed Josh against the wall, desperate to feel him against her.  Is this what Dr. Free Ride felt towards that nurse?  An overwhelming need to be with her? Touch her?  God, things must be really messed up in her head because she was beginning to empathise with that bastard.

In her head, she had called that nurse a million horrible names: slut, whore, shank.  What kind of woman knowingly started something with an attached man?  What kind of woman?  Well, a woman like her apparently.  Without warning, Donna felt nauseous.  She was no better than that nurse.  Donna had kissed Josh, had let Josh kiss her knowing that he had a girlfriend.  While the one brief exchange between Donna and Mandy had been less than pleasant, Donna knew that Mandy didn’t deserve this, no woman did for that matter.  So how was she better than the nurse that Dr. Free Ride cheated with?  Well, she hadn’t slept with Josh...yet.  She hoped that if she was faced with the situation she would say no, but she had this horrible suspicion that if actually presented with an opportunity to be with Josh she wouldn’t be able to say no.  And for the second time in a matter of minutes she felt sick to her stomach again.

“Hey, are you okay?  You look like you’re going to be sick.  No puking in the rental because I’m sure as hell not going to clean it up.”

Yes, this was the man she found so irresistible.  Of course, trust Josh to notice another person’s feelings now.  Why couldn’t he just go back to ignoring her like he had for the last few hours.

“I’m fine, probably just hungry.  Plus, it’s so hot,” she answered back, looking out the window.  She didn’t feel ready to actually look at him yet.  She had this irrational fear that he would be able to read everything that she was feeling and thinking if he could see her eyes.

 “We’re almost at the hotel, but we can stop to get something to eat if you want.”

Okay, she could handle rude and abrupt Josh, what she definitely couldn’t handle right now was sensitive and accommodating Josh. 

“No, I’m fine.”  While a part of her wanted to jump on the invitation, and maybe on Josh as well, what she needed right now was to get into her own hotel room and away from Josh for a while so she could think.

He looked over at her, trying to meet her eyes, but she was stubbornly focused on the view outside her passenger side window.  Splitting his focus between the road and her profile, Josh was unsure of how to proceed.  A big part of him wanted to talk about this...thing, for lack of a better word, between them, but there was still a smaller part of him that hoped they could just ignore it and go back to being the unprofessional boss and assistant they were before he had pulled her into that janitor’s closet.

She certainly appeared to not want to talk, judging by the way she had shifted her entire body into a pretzel in an effort to turn away from him as much as possible; she was practically molded into the passenger side door.

What did she have to be so nervous about?  She was the one who launched herself at him.  Not that he was complaining, no, no, no, nooooo; there was nothing in that kiss to complain about.  Was she embarrassed now?  Did she think that he embarrassed?  She must know that although the kiss was unexpected it was not unwelcome; when she had attempted to pull away, he had crushed her to him like a drowning man holding on to a life preserver.  Maybe that was it, had he inadvertently scared her by going too far, pushing for more?  No, he didn’t think so, if he remembered correctly she had eagerly molded her soft body to his, her tongue had met his thrust for thrust.

So what had gone wrong – Ah!

He should really be applauded for his masterful deduction skills, usually he was an idiot when it came to figuring out women, Sam always joked that he missed the obvious signs, couldn’t even see what was right in front of him, but not this time. He knew exactly what was bothering Donna or he should say who was bothering her.  He wished her could pull out his cell and call Sam right now just to gloat, but he didn’t think that Donna would share his enthusiasm concerning his deduction skills.

The problem was obvious: Donna thought that he was still with Mandy.  Knowing that Dr. Free Ride had cheated on her, Donna probably thought that Josh was no better.  Well, that was a thought he needed to get rid of quickly.

So the question was how could he let it slip that he was no longer with Mandy.  Really, it couldn’t be that hard, he had helped draft important messages for some of the smartest political minds of his generation.  Letting Donna know, by slipping into their many daily conversations in a completely nonchalant, natural and organic way that he wasn’t seeing Mandy any more should be a piece of cake.

“I broke up with Mandy,” he blurted out.

Smooth Lyman, real smooth.

Well at least she was no longer looking out the damn window, at his unprompted declaration Donna’s head had snapped around to stare open mouthed at Josh.

“Oh,” she whispered.

Not really what he had hoped for, but at least they were making eye contact now.

Dividing his attention between focusing on not driving the car into any inanimate objects and looking at Donna, he was unsure of his next move.  Shouldn’t she be happier?  He wasn’t a cheating bastard, when he had kissed her in the closet and later when she had kissed him in the hotel room he was actually a single man.  So really they could go on kissing, and doing a lot of other things without feeling guilty, unless --

Unless Donna didn’t want to go on kissing him.  What if she, despite what he felt during their kiss, had no interest in more kissing?  God, he had just told her that he had broken up with his girlfriend; Donna probably thought he had broken up with Mandy so he could start something with her and she was freaked out by it. It must be too much too soon.  

Okay, Lyman, this time think about what you want to say before saying it.

“I didn’t break up with Mandy for you; I mean to be with you or anything.  The relationship wasn’t working so I ended it.”

Ah, crap again.

But maybe it wasn’t all bad news after all because instead of looking relieved, what appeared to be a flash of disappointment crossed Donna’s face, but Josh couldn’t be 100 percent sure because he had just turned his eyes back to the road.  When he turned his gaze back to her again that look was gone, replaced by a now familiar wide eyed, open mouthed gape.

“Oh,” she muttered again.

Josh was really starting to hate that one syllable.  

She opened her mouth again as if to speak, but no words came out.  She repeated this process a few times.  She looked like a fish searching for food, it was on the tip of Josh’s tongue to tell her she looked like a guppy, but even he knew that wouldn’t be a comparison she would appreciate.

Finally she spoke.  “I think that right now, being in the middle of the biggest thing we are ever going to do in our lives, having a relationship would be extremely difficult.”

Now it was Josh’s turn to mouth a small ‘oh’.  Well, message received loud and clear, Donna had no interest in pursuing anything with him – he looked out the driver’s side window, he wondered if he could just pull over the car and walk the rest of the way, no, Donna would probably just follow him.  He could just jump out of the car, do a parachute roll and walk away, that seemed to work for people in the movies all the time. 

“But,” she continued, “Completely hypothetically, I think that people in a relationship should make each other happy, you know.  That person should make you laugh; it should be easy to be around them because you like talking to them, bantering with them,” she practically whispered those last words with a shy smile on her face.  “I think that if a person had a relationship like that then it wouldn’t matter that they were in a middle of a campaign or anything, those people would find a way for a relationship to work.  Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

“Of course,” he answered, trying his best to keep his face from breaking into a huge smile.

Well it was a start, a hypothetical start, but a start nonetheless.

*****

Even though Donna had complained about Josh’s hectic schedule before they even left for Florida, no one on the campaign could have anticipated how frantic their time in Florida would be.  If Josh was scheduled to be in three different places at once than the Governor was scheduled to be in five.  They had been in Florida for 2 days now; the rest of the campaign staff had joined Donna and Josh yesterday.

Although Josh and Donna had come to an understanding of sorts during their car ride from the airport to the hotel, there had literally been no time to discuss or explore the hypothetical conversation or make time to turn the hypothetical into an actuality.

People scurried around the hardware store turned campaign office in a display of organised chaos.  Donna was trying to work her magic again by creating a schedule that allowed Josh to maximum his time spent working with the delegates.  She had briefly seen Josh once in the morning when he threw a pile of papers on his makeshift desk and then took off with Sam for another meeting.

‘Ah, this is the life I chose’, she thought to herself.  She entered his office and attempted to reconfigure his desk so it resembled a workable space again.  Finally, content with her efforts, Donna went to find Margaret.  Time passed so quickly as she rushed around gathering all the information Margaret needed that she didn’t even notice at first that Josh had returned from his meeting.

“DONNA!”

Hmm, maybe if she just ignored him, he’d go away.

“DONNA!  I can see you, get in here now.”

“Yes, Josh.  Did you need something?”  She asked calmly.

“I put some files down on my desk before, but now they’re gone.  What did you do with them?”

“Put, Josh?  You did not put the files down; put implies you placed the files with some sort of organised intent.  No, you did not put the files down, what you did was throw them willy-nilly so they scattered everywhere.  But it’s a good thing I’m here, because I already put them away for you.”

Josh looked less than impressed.  “Why did you put them anywhere? I had them organised the way I wanted them.”

“Oh, Josh.  Haven’t you realised yet that my way is better.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it really is.”

“Donna, I don’t want to get into a fight about this.”

“That’s good because you’ll lose.”

“Damn it Donna, I need those files.”

“Oh, you’re angry now.”

“I was angry before.”

“No, before you were amused.  You liked my crazy index cards and my unique filing system.  But right now, you’re angry.”

“Well, thank god you’re here so you can explain what I’m feeling.”

“You’re welcome.”

“That wasn’t meant as a compliment,” he exploded. 

“Josh, you need to relax.  It’s my job to make sure that you’re organised and on schedule.  The files are my responsibility.  What you need to do is take a deep breath and stop stomping around yelling.  Everyone is under a lot of pressure, but you don’t see anyone else in a rotten mood – and don’t even bring up Toby because angry and ornery is his default mood.  So would you like to start this conversation over again?”

They stared at each other for a minute, waiting to see who would break first.  

“Donna, my wonderful and organised assistant, I noticed that you rearranged the files I left here earlier, thank you for doing that by the way.  While moving the files did you happen to notice where you put the Florida file?”

“Hmm, still a little too much sarcasm in your tone for my liking but it will do.”  Without even looking, Donna reached into a hanging file folder rack and grabbed the Florida file, and handed it to Josh in one swift movement.  

With a quick ‘thank you’, Josh rushed out the door again, off to another meeting.

*****

They were supposed to have missed the storm.  After all Florida in March is not typical storm weather, but sometimes Mother Nature had different plans.  Thankfully, the Governor and the vast majority of the staff had already spent their scheduled three days in Florida and had left for Texas earlier that morning.

The vast majority of the staff, except for Josh and Donna that was.  Josh had had an appointment that evening so he and Donna were supposed to fly and meet the campaign bus in Texas tomorrow.  Of course, now due to the storm that meeting was cancelled, and there were no flights going out because of the weather, so essentially Josh and Donna were trapped in a hotel room in Florida, well two separate hotel rooms.

Naturally, Donna was nervous and a little scared.  Having grown up in the land-locked state of Wisconsin, tropical storms were not something that she gave a lot of thought to.  Donna prided herself on being prepared for most things that were thrown at her, but today she could honestly say that she had never thought about how to be prepared for being stuck in a hotel waiting for a tropical storm to pass.

Predictably, Josh was no help.  Instead of being concerned that a massive gust of wind was going to sweep away the hotel, he focused on the positive, well, the positive according to Josh Lyman, he was excited about all the work they could get done without the normal interruptions that occurred while at the campaign office.  To say Donna did not share his enthusiasm at the idea of doing even more work was a huge understatement.

Donna sat, cross-legged, in the middle of the bed in Josh’s hotel room.  Various files, reports, and memos surrounded her.  On the other side of the room, Josh sat in the chair near the desk that accompanied the room, hunched over making notes in the margins of the document he was reading.

Donna was trying to pay attention; she had her index cards in her lap, a pen poised in her fingers ready to jot down any pertinent information she came across, but for the life of her, she couldn’t think about anything other than the storm outside.  

 Finally, she gave up the pretense of doing actual work. 

“Josh, how can you work at a time like this?”

“A time like what?”

“Josh, be serious!”  She said while waving her hands in the direction of the television, turning up the volume so the anchor’s voice could be heard clearly.

“...this storm has the lowest maximum winds, while a Category 5 hurricane has the highest.  Storms that meet the 64-knot threshold, but do not possess maximum sustained winds in excess of 83 kn (96 mph; 154 km/h) are classified as Category 1 hurricanes. A Category 1 storm will be upgraded to a Category 2 hurricane if its maximum sustained winds reach 83 knots.  Although increasing echelons of the scale correspond to stronger winds, the rankings are not absolute in terms of effects. Lower-category storms can inflict greater damage than higher-category storms, depending on factors such as local terrain, population density and total rainfall. For instance, a Category 2 that strikes a major urban area will likely do more damage than a large Category 5 hurricane that strikes a mostly rural region. In fact, tropical systems of less than hurricane strength can produce significant damage and human casualties, especially from flooding and landslides.  Currently the storm passing through Florida is classified as a Category 1, with meteorologists finding no evidence to support an upgrade to Category 2.  However, we still encourage all residents to remain in-doors and stay away from all windows.”

“See Donna, there is nothing to be worried about.  Now, do you have those numbers that I asked for?”

“How can you be so calm about this?” 

“Because I am a man, and we men possess logical brains, while you women -,” he broke off wisely before finishing his thought.  “Anyway, if we were in any real danger there is no way they would let us stay in the hotel.  We would have already been shipped off to the closest evacuation centre.  But as you and I remain comfortably seated in this hotel room, logically I have deduced that we are in no danger.  So I repeat do you have those numbers that I asked for?” 

“Argh!”  With that last outburst, Donna threw herself back onto the bed, not caring that she was crushing various papers. What did it matter she thought? She was going to be the one to clean it all up anyway.  “You being all relaxed about this is really freaking me out.” She said while looking up at the ceiling.

“Would you rather I have a nutty?  Weren’t you just telling me that I needed to relax, what did you say again, I should ‘stop stomping around yelling’, but now you want me to freak out?  Would that make you feel better?”  He asked sarcastically.

“Yes! Yes, it would.”  She knew she sounded childish, but at this point, she didn’t care.  “Well, I’m done; I am incapable of doing any work right now.  Plus it is nearly 1 in the morning so I feel like I have put in a full day of work.”  Donna hopped off the bed, careful not to make a bigger mess of the files than she already had.

“You’re leaving?”  He asked in a panicked voice.

Josh quickly jumped out of his chair and walked over to stand in front of Donna.  “You don’t have to go.  If you don’t feel like working that’s fine.  We could just hang out and watch some television, you know, take advantage of the special channels that are available in hotels.”

He didn’t really want to watch TV, he was just trying to think of a reason to get her to stay without actually saying that he didn’t want her to leave.

Donna raised her eyebrows in mock indignation.  “Josh, I’m not sure what kind of girl you think I am, but I am not going to sit down and watch porn with you.” 

“What?  Porn?  I didn’t mean we should watch porn, I meant HBO.  That channel has a lot of great shows; I thought we could find something good for us to watch together.  Although, I really think we should revisit this watching porn together idea.”  He said with a slightly smug grin on his face.

She wasn’t sure what was wrong with her, but for some reason when Josh acted all cocky and arrogant she found it hard not to jump him.  

“As tempting as that idea is, I really think I should go back to my own room.”  She said, although her voice lacked conviction.

“Okay,” although the expression on his face illustrated that he thought the idea was less than okay.  “But if you change your mind, I’ll be right here hard at work.”

 “Sure.”  Donna hesitated for a fraction of a second when she reached the door.  With a quick glance back at Josh, she made her way down the hallway to her room. The logical part of her knew she had made the right decision, but unfortunately, the not so logical areas of her body were less than pleased with her choice.

Donna let herself into her hotel room, struck by how dark and lonely it was.  She silently walked across the carpeted room and flicked on the light in the bathroom.  Quickly undressing, Donna blindly grabbed a random t-shirt and a pair of baggy jogging shorts to sleep in.  She crawled into bed, snuggling down into the mattress, trying to find a relaxing position.  Her thoughts went back to Josh in his hotel room, was he in bed too or did he stay up to watch TV as he had suggested?  No point wondering about it now, she thought, she had made her choice.  Within minutes her breathing evened out, she had fallen asleep, her body giving way to the exhaustion of the day.

*****

She jerked awake at the sound of the wind and rain battering against the hotel room’s window.  She wasn’t sure how long she had slept for, but she was definitely awake now.  She told herself to calm down.  Sometime during the night, she had gravitated towards the edge of the hotel bed.  She braced one hand on the wooden headboard and the other against the wall.  She knew it was impossible but she swore she could actually feel the pounding of the storm against her hand that was placed on the wall. 

Suddenly overcome with an urgent need to go to the washroom, Donna slid out of bed and softly padded her way to the bathroom.  She would never know what caused her to whip around to look out of the window, a flash of something she could never be sure, but the combination of her head looking in one direction while her body was trying to go in another caused her to lose her balance.  She fell violently; banging her head on the desk nestled in the corner of her hotel room. 

“Damn it,” she cursed aloud, gently rubbing her temple.  

Bracing herself against the wall, her head still pounding, she stood to reassess her surroundings.  The clock on the nightstand next to her bed was flashing 12 o’clock so at some point during the night the power must have gone off.  Donna slowly made her way to the bathroom and picked up her wristwatch, although the light provided by the moon was dim she was pretty sure it was 2:30 in the morning, so she hadn’t been asleep that long.  She wondered if Josh was still working or if he had gone to bed as well. 

Without thinking, Donna grabbed the extra room key and she exited the bathroom.  She opened the door to her hotel room, entered the dimly lit hallway, and made her way down to Josh’s room.  She stood before the door, contemplating her next move.  She didn’t need to knock, she had an extra key card. Josh insisted she have a copy as well because he was always losing his.

She knew what would happen if she opened the door, she knew what she wanted to have happen and she was sure that Josh felt the same.  But wasn’t it too soon?  She has only known the man for a month and he was technically her boss, although anyone could see they didn’t have the normal boss-assistant relationship.  God, she wished she was one of those girls from that new show everyone was talking about, what was it called ‘Sex and the City’ or was it ‘Sex in the City’?  Donna wasn’t sure, she had never watched it, but apparently it was about these women in New York who were strong independent career women who didn’t worry about things like being in a committed relationship before sleeping with a guy.  She wished she could be that type of girl just this once.  Unfortunately, Donna knew wishing never made it so.  She was the type of girl who needed to be emotionally involved before she could even think about becoming physical with a guy, which explained why at 23 she has only slept with 2 guys: her first boyfriend (a nice boy named Freddie) and Dr. Free Ride.

Unexpectedly she was overwhelmed by a new fear, what if she wasn’t any good in bed.  Josh was 13 years older than she was; he had probably slept with tons of women and expected his partner to bring a certain amount of experience to the table, so to speak.   However, from the way she caught Josh looking at her sometimes she didn’t think he would mind a lack of experience on her part, and what was that old saying, ‘practice makes perfect’.

Suddenly her choice didn’t seem so hard after all.

She slid the key car into the slot and pushed open the door.  When she walked into the room she looked up to see Josh laying in bed, a file folder open against his thighs, one eyebrow lifted as her looked back at her.

“Hello,” he said, amusement dripping from his voice.

TBC....


	4. Chapter 4

He would have sworn an oath in court that he had felt her on the other side of the door even before she let herself into his room.  Okay, it might be a slight exaggeration on his part because he had already ‘felt’ her on the other side of the door twice, but both times when he had rushed to open the door to let her in, no one was standing there.  So, the third time he ‘sensed’ her, he thought it prudent to ignore the feeling and go back to reading again.  However, much to his delight, this was no trick, Donna really was standing in front of him is his room.

“Hello,” he said, amusement dripping from his voice.

Panic nearly overtook her.  Josh was here.  Talking to her.  ‘Of course he’s here you idiot, where else would he be?  You just let yourself into his hotel room at 2:30 in the morning of course he’s here, it would be weird if he wasn’t’, she berated herself.

Hmm, did he just say something?  He was just laying there on the bed, wearing boxers and a T-shirt, looking at her.  ‘Say something, you idiot’, she thought.

“I hit my head.”  The injury certainly wasn’t that serious, although her head still throbbed, but at the moment she would have taken any excuse to explain why she was standing in his hotel room besides, ‘I came here to have sex with you’.  Although she imagined he would appreciate the honesty, she wasn’t prepared to be so open with her intentions yet.

Immediately he was by her side, “Just now?” he asked, brushing her hair back from her temple with surprisingly gentle hands.

“In my room, I had to go...,” she broke off suddenly, for some reason she felt embarrassed to admit she had fallen on her way to the bathroom, as if using the facilities wasn’t a natural occurrence for every living thing, “...I had to get up to stretch my legs and I fell.” 

“Where does it hurt?”

Donna pressed two fingers against her sore left temple.  “Here.  But I’m fine, just a little headache.”

“Move your hand and let me look.”

Josh tilted her chin with his fingers, brushing back her hair from her forehead and leaning in close.  His expression was one of genuine concern.  “You’ll have a bruise, I think,” he murmured after a moment, drawing her hair down over her one shoulder.

When he tilted her head down, he also drew Donna’s eyes down towards the floor, she allowed her gaze to drift over her outfit for the first time.  Of course, she knew what she was wearing, she had put it on, but looking at her clothes from Josh’s perspective was frightening.  She looked down over her XXL Green Bay Packers T-Shirt covered in bleach stains, continued down to her super baggy grey jogging shorts until her eyes rested on her ankle high socks, covered in little cheese heads.  But the worst, the worst thing she was wearing wasn’t even visible...yet.  The realization hit her that she was currently wearing granny panties.  This is why she would never be a master seductress, she couldn’t even dress the part, but really what could she have done differently?  It wasn’t like there had been a Victoria’s Secret store she could have stopped by on her way to Josh’s room.  Suddenly she was overcome with utter humiliation, which caused an involuntary groan to leave her body.

“Are you okay?  Did I hurt you?”

Donna felt instantly guilty at making him believe that his gentle caresses to her head had in some way caused her more pain.  Even more gently than before, if that was even possible, Josh continued to rub her bruised forehead. 

His touch made her shiver.  

“The weather outside is scary.”

“Has our relationship grown so stale already that we are reduced to talking about the weather?”  His voice was light and teasing as a small smile danced across his face.

“The weather is really scary.”  She amended.

His smile deepened as did hers.  She continued, “The storm did wake me up though.”

“Yeah, I was having trouble sleeping too,” he said as he continued to play with her hair.

“The weather isn’t cooperating with our need for sleep is it?  I’m so tired.”

“Oh, no, you can’t sleep now,” he said with a determined look on his face.  “You have sustained a head injury, you can’t fall asleep now, what if you never wake up?  No, no, my job as a gentlemen would be to find some sort of...activity, if you like, that would require you to be alert and awake, maybe even something that would demand your active participation,” he finished with a smirk.

“And what sort of activity did you have in mind?”, she asked coyly, or at least she hoped it came across as coy and seductive as opposed to desperate and dorky which was how she was really feeling.

“I thought, you know, maybe we could...dance?”

“What? You wanna dance?  Now?  In your hotel room?”

“Well, seeing as how there is a tropical storm going on outside, I think it would be best if we didn’t try and dance outside.”

“Did you also fall and hit your head too?”

“Donna! Come on, I’m trying to bring the romance here, plus it will be fun, and we have never danced together before.”

‘We’ve never done a lot of things together before’, she mumbled under her breath.  But out loud she said, “Fine, it’s too late to argue.  I will dance with you, but remember I’m not up on the type of dances you used to do when you were wrong, so we will have to skip the Charleston and the Fox Trot.” 

“Wow, just how many different ways can there be for you to call me old?  Fine, why don’t we try a classic?  Do you know how to waltz?”

“Of course I can waltz, everyone from Wisconsin knows how to waltz, it’s a mandatory requirement for all grade schoolers, because you never when you might be invited to an 18th century ball in Madison, Wisconsin.  Although, I am a little worried since I haven’t received permission from Lady Jersey to dance at Almack’s yet, but fingers crossed.”

“You’re just a mouth full of wise ass tonight aren’t you?”  He said, although he looked more amused than angry by her snarky comment.  “Come here,” he motioned with his hands, pulling her into close proximity with his body in order to form the correct dancing position.

“Why do you know how to waltz?  It comes up a lot in Washington?”

“Surprisingly, yes.  There are so many stupid galas and fundraisers that I am forced to attend that in order to not look like a complete tool it was necessary that I learned a few basic dances.”

“You, look like a tool?  Never!”

“Would you just shut up and put your hand on my shoulder,” he instructed, taking her free hand in his and slipping his other around her waist.

“This is ridiculous.”

“Just humour me.”

With an exasperated sigh, Donna placed her hand on his shoulder.  Through the thin cotton t-shirt his skin felt warm beneath her fingers.  Slowly he pulled her closer, until they touched hip to hip.  It felt so nice and warm pressed against him that the next logical step for Donna was to softly place her head against the side of his neck.

She waited for his next instruction, but when none came she wasn’t too bothered, she simply enjoyed the feeling of being held by Josh.  “Is this your idea of dancing?”

He flexed his hand where it held her waist and brushed his lips against her temple.

More surprised than anything by his kiss, Donna involuntarily tensed in his arms.  Mistaking her reaction for apprehension as opposed to surprise Josh did what Josh did best, or worse depending on one’s point of view, he over analysed the situation.  

Maybe this was going too fast for her?  Although she was the one who came to him, he reasoned.  Still, wanting something in theory and having it actually happen in reality could sometimes be overwhelming.  He slowly loosened his hold on her, which was probably a smart idea because although his mind had gotten the memo to slow things down, the message had not been received by certain areas of his anatomy yet.

Instantly and without warning, he was struck by another thought.  What if she was feeling nervous because she didn’t know what to expect?  She didn’t know what to expect because she had never done this before?  No, that didn’t make sense.  She had a boyfriend back in Wisconsin, Dr. Free Ride; she had been with that asshole for a while so she must have slept with him at some point.  But, she was from Wisconsin, maybe they took things slower there, Donna did say that Dr. Free Ride cheated on her, maybe he did that because there was no sex in the relationship?  Argh, all this thinking was really starting to hurt his head and ruin the mood.

But what options did he have?  If she was a virgin, could he turn her away, tell her to find some other random guy and then come back to him later?  That obviously was not an option.  Then there was the male ego part of him that thought, ‘good, she shouldn’t have been with anyone else before me,’ but that was quickly shouted down by the rational part of his brain which knew he should probably never be anyone’s first introduction to anything.  He was more like the guy who came in after and showed people how it really should be done.

Well, arguing with himself was getting him nowhere fast; the only way to find out the answer to his question was to ask her.

“Umm, Donna, you have, ah, done this before right?”

“This?  You mean dance the waltz with my boss in my pajamas during a tropical storm at almost 3 o’clock in the morning?  Yeah, of course, I do this all the time,” she answered with a toothy smile.

“Why is nothing ever easy with you?  Please, don’t answer that.  What I am trying to ask is...I mean have you ever done...,” he broke off, making a questionable hand gesture while pointing his head in the general direction of the bed, “this before?”

“Josh, are you trying to ask me if I’ve had sex before,” she laughed.  “Of course, I’ve had sex, I was with John for almost 4 years, we had sex, a lot of sex actually....”

“Okay,” he abruptly cut her off.  “Rule 1: we do not discuss you having sex with other men.  Ever.”

“Fine, I can abide by rule 1.”  She said as she leaned her body into his. 

“Okay, good.”  

They continued to stand, bodies pressed together hip to hip, making no actual attempt to dance.

“Ah, Josh.  You said there was rule number 1 but then you stopped, when you start listing reasons or rules about something there is usually a second or third thing in order for, you know, it to be considered an actual list.”

“Donna.”

“Yeah?”

“Stop talking.”

“Okay.”

He lowered his head and trailed his lips lightly over her mouth.  The kiss was butterfly gentle and fleeting.  Much different than their first two kisses, the first in the closet was over so quickly she almost imagined it and the second kiss in the hotel room had been aggressive and primal.  She wanted to savour the sensation of his lips on hers because she wasn’t sure if this was a one-time thing or the beginning of something else altogether.  Although they had talked in the car a few days ago about having a hypothetical relationship no more had been said on the matter and she didn’t want to bring it up now in fear of ruining the moment.  If in fact they did want different things from each other she wanted to put off the disappointment until tomorrow, she needed one night as least where she could pretend that Josh was hers.  

He slowly lifted his lips, but it was only a momentary pause before he kissed her again.  The feel of his lips meeting hers was mesmerizing.  He applied a little more pressure and pushed her gently towards the bed, when they reached their destination he lowered her down, never breaking contact, so her breasts were nestled against his chest.

He paused, his lips hovering mere inches from hers.  “Are you sure you want this?  I mean I am your boss, even though you never really do want I ask, but still, you want this right?  I mean I don’t want you to do something you aren’t ready for.”

“You think I’m going to sleep with you because you intimidate me as my boss,” she laughed softly.  Then in a voice so small that if he wasn’t so close to her, he would have never been able to hear the words, “you are not the kind of man to take advantage of a woman.”

In that moment, in those 13 little words, he knew.  Someone had her hurt more than what she had already divulged to him, most likely Dr. Free Ride.  Josh felt something within him hardened into rage, or maybe it was regret.  Regret that he hadn’t met her sooner, that he hadn’t been able to protect her.

He looked down at her and his breath caught in his throat.  She was so beautiful, flushed skin, blue eyes, smiling mouth.  Who could ever spend any time with Donnatella Moss and not realise how amazing she was?  When her lips parted involuntarily, he swept his tongue inside and withdrew repeatedly until she lost the ability to think of anything beyond him.  When he lifted his lips from hers, she inhaled.  The masculine scent of him curled inside her.  Donna was used to Josh’s scent, she encountered it every day at the office, but she had never experienced it in this way, never so close, never so much a part of her.

Josh nuzzled her neck. “I love the feel of your skin.”  

He then trailed damp kisses down her neck and sucked on her throat where her pulse beat.  He licked her there, startling her.  He pulled at her arms, which had wrapped themselves around his neck, away from his body so he could remove her T-shirt.  Once she was naked from the waist up he quickly returned his attention back to her chest.  Donna bit her lip from crying out as he outlined the tops of her breasts.  When he dipped his tongue into the hollow between her breasts and cupped them, she drew in a shattered breath.

Donna tangled her fingers into his hair, holding him in place.

 Josh raised his head to look at her one more time; he was still having trouble believing this was actually happening.  In a ragged voice, he told her, “You are so beautiful.”

“Did you just call me beautiful?” she said trying to sound skeptical.  The words came out more giddy and aroused, than cynical.

He chuckled against her breastbone, the low sound echoing into her chest.  “Yes, I did.”

“You’re trying to seduce me now, aren’t we a little past that point?”  Donna said while waving her hands in the general area of their entwined bodies.  

“I’m damn well trying to seduce you, and no, there is never a point when seduction is not necessary.”  With that Josh kissed her again.

He ran his hand from her thigh up along her waist to her shoulder, brushing his fingers across one breast as he went.   Josh trailed his fingers around her breastbone, and then swirls around and around, closer and closer, until he brushes across her left breast.  He did the same with her other breast, touching, caressing, until she was gasping for air.

“Josh,” she whispered, digging her fingers into his shoulders, “if you don’t stop teasing me soon, I’m going to be pretty pissed.”

“I’m not teasing,” he answered in the same tone, leaning down and replacing his fingers with his mouth.

Overwhelmed by the sensation Donna arched her back, pulling him closer against her.  When she finally controlled her breathing, she lifted the bottom of his shirt and practically ripped it off him.  If she was not wearing a shirt there is no way that he got to keep his on.  

Slowly Donna placed her hands on his chest, a small smile on her face as she enjoyed the feel of his muscles tensing beneath her palm.  “Your heart is beating so fast.”

Smiling as well, Josh pushed himself up, straddling her hips.  “Lift your hips,” he said, tugging her jogging shorts down her legs and throwing them on the floor.  All thoughts of granny panties completely forgotten.

“Do I get to finish undressing you?”  She asked.

“Please, I’m feeling a bit constricted.”

Lowering her gaze from his brown eyes, she could see what he meant.  Licking her lips, Donna reached over to grab his boxers.  An excited grin formed on her face as she tugged Josh’s boxers down passed his thighs.  Soon he was as naked as she was.

“See? Not teasing.” He bent forward onto his hands and knees, kissing her deep and open-mouthed.

Donna ached to touch every inch of his warm, smooth skin.  

Donna felt like she was in a dream, was this really happening?  Was she really lying naked in bed under Josh?  Were they really about to – Hmm, what expression should she use?  What do men say?  Fuck.  No, she definitely didn’t like the sound of that.  Too aggressive, too impersonal.  Have sexual intercourse.  No, that sounded clinical and cold.  And what she was feeling right now was not clinical and it was definitely not cold.  She felt almost taken over by his heat. 

Josh lifted his head a little.  “What are you thinking about?”

She ran her fingers through his hair again, pulling his face down to hers once more.  “Nothing.”

With a familiar smirk, he bent his head to run his mouth over her breasts again, the slid lower to kiss her stomach, and then lower again.  

Donna squealed, immediately clapping both hands over her mouth as though she was afraid to wake any possible neighbours.  At the noise, Josh lifted his head, eyes dancing, to look at her before returning to his task.

Donna clutched at the fabric of the bed, twisting her fingers into the material; all coherent or logical thoughts blasted into oblivion by the heat soaring through her.  He continued to caress her, reveling in every gasp, every moan that escaped from her parted lips.

 “Does it feel good?”

“It feels…okay.”

At that challenge, Josh moved her up on the bed a little more so he could gain complete access to her.  He used all his skills to tease her, using his tongue and his fingers to keep up the constant circling pressure so that her body quaked in response.

“Does it feel good?” He asked again.

“You know it does.” She gasped.

He raised his head, positioning his mouth over her chest, sucking and nibbling in time with the motion of his fingers, exerting just the right amount of pressure until she broke apart into a million pieces.  Shivering and shuddering inside and out, all she could do was bury her fingers into his hair and gasp for air.

“Josh,” she rasped.

He moved again, settling over her with his knees between hers.  

Still kissing her ferociously, he sank down, slowly sliding inside her.

“Does that feel good?”  She threw the question back at him, running her hands down his back, feeling the play of muscles beneath her fingers.

“Yes,” he growled, “very good.”

As he moved he continued kissing her, his expression intense, he couldn’t stop looking at her, couldn’t stop caressing her.  Tension tightened his muscles beneath her touch, the sensation creeping through him into her.

 “Wrap your legs around me.”

When she did, he hissed at the feeling of her soft, slim thighs cradling him.  “I love your legs,” he whispered into her ear.

He tilted his head to kiss her again; he knew his control over the situation was slipping.  Josh bared his teeth, focusing on a slow and steady rhythm, as the pressure built and built.  The sound of them together juxtaposed against the noise of the storm outside the hotel room was driving him to the edge.  He was breathing hard and was beginning to lose himself completely to the feeling of being with her.  

Donna clutched at him with her arms, wanting more.  He stilled and pressed higher, changing the angle. The spasms started for him, just after they ended for her and he gave himself up to the pleasure.  

Finally, he collapsed on top of her, completely spent.

After what seemed like an eternity, he pushed up on his elbows and cleared his throat.  “I must be crushing you.” His voice sounded sleepy.

“It’s okay.  I like holding you.”  She said shyly.  How she could be shy after what they had just done amazed him.

Josh rolled to his side and motioned to Donna to get under the sheets.  Together they settled into a positioned that was comfortable for both and quickly drifted off to sleep.  

TBC....


	5. Chapter 5

As the sun slowly rose in the sky, Josh lay on his side, leaning on his elbow with his head propped up in his hand idly toying with the loose strands of Donna’s golden hair.  Donna was sleeping, or at least he thought she was.  If she was just pretending, she was being amazingly indulgent, letting him stroke through her silky curls, he marveled at the way the soft rays of the sun peeking in through the window reflected on each strand.  Her hair looked like spun gold.  Her hair mesmerized him, in the past he had always been attracted to brunettes or women with dark hair, but now the thought of waking up next to anything other than Donna’s blonde locks was unthinkable.

He hadn’t realized that her hair was so soft, he couldn’t stop touching it last night and now that she lay beside him, he took advantage of the opportunity to play with her tresses some more.  Her hair was also longer than he realized, usually she wore it up in an efficient ponytail perfect for running around the office, but now, with her hair down, it was gorgeous. She was gorgeous.  Her hair spilled over her shoulders, rippling into soft, luxurious waves that came to an end at the tops of her breasts, which were loosely covered by the bed sheet.

A small cocky smile spread across his face.  He liked that her hair didn’t cover her breasts.

“I’m almost afraid to ask what you are smiling about so early in the morning,” she mumbled into her pillow, her voice thick and lazy from lack of sleep considering it was barely 6 now and they had fallen into bed a little after 3.

“You’re awake.”

“Thank you obvious boy, yes, I’m awake.”  She let out a small mewl as she stretched her arms.  He happily watched as the bed sheet slipped away from her body.

“Oh,” she gasped and clutched at the sheet in a futile attempt to cover herself.

She blushed from head to toe, although the light peeking in from the window was too dim for him to see the pink on her skin, her eyes looked down for a moment as they always did when she was embarrassed.

“So, why are you smiling?” she asked in an attempt to divert his attention elsewhere.

“I was thinking that I like that your hair is not long enough to cover your breasts.”

If it was possible, her skin turned an even darker shade of pink.  Not wanting her to feel too embarrassed, he reached over and entwined his fingers with hers.

“How’s your head?”

“Oh.”  She raised her free hand to softly touch her forehead, as he had predicted last night a purple bruise had formed in the area where she had hit her head.  “I forgot that I hit my head last night.”

Josh grinned.  “Well, that was my goal; you know, get you so hot and bothered that any thoughts about a head injury were lost in a haze of Lyman Love.”

“Wow,” she giggled, “the fact that in the past any woman has ever let you touch her is a mystery to me.  The fact that I let you touch me is a complete mystery to me right now.”

“Trust me, I can’t believe you let me touch you either,” he said earnestly.

They fell into a comfortable silence, hands still tangled together.  Soon, however, Josh noticed worry lines start to form on Donna’s forehead.  He wasn’t surprised when he heard her ask quietly, “What happens now?”

He knew exactly what she was asking, but he didn’t want to answer.  Snuggled together in his hotel room, it was easy to pretend that the rest of the world didn’t exist, that there wasn’t a campaign waiting for them in Texas.

“We get up, have a shower, check to make sure the airport is open, and book the next flight to Texas,” his voice was muffled as he spoke into her hair, not willing to break out of their embrace yet.

“Josh,” she said, trying to keep the whine out her voice, while she didn’t want to put any pressure on him to define their...whatever, she did want to know what was next for them.

“I know, Donna.  I know what you’re asking and I’m not sure.  I know that I want more of this,” he said, pulling her body back tight against his chest to emphasize his point, “as for the rest...I’m not sure.  I don’t think we should let anyone know about us yet, not that what I think we’re doing is wrong, or should be hidden, but I just think that for now we shouldn’t say anything.  I know that’s probably not what you want to hear, but I’m trying to be as honest as I can.” 

“Okay.” She responded, because it was okay, more than okay actually, if she got to spend more mornings waking up next to Josh she wasn’t going to complain.  What their future held was unknown at this point and she could live with the uncertainty of that...for now.

She broke out of his arms and swung her legs over the side of the bed.  

“Where are you going?”

“Well, according to your plans for the day, the next step after getting up is having a shower, which is exactly what I intend to do now.”  She replied matter-of-factly.

The bed sheet fell away as she stretched her arms towards the ceiling; she willed her body not to blush again.  If she was going to wake up next to Josh naked on a regular basis, which she had every intention of doing; she had to get over her shyness.  She stood up beside the bed completely naked and looked down at Josh.  He had not taken his eyes off her since she first moved away from him.

The desire that she saw reflected in his eyes was empowering.  She felt herself go bold with confidence.  With a nod of her head, she motioned towards the bathroom.

“Do you plan on staying in bed...alone?”

Not one who needed to be asked twice, Josh literally bounced out of bed to stand next to Donna.  His arms circled her body, pulling her close.

“I could definitely get used to this kind of morning ritual,” he said, raking his gaze from her face, slowly looking down her body.  Suddenly, his eyes went dark as his brow furrowed.

“What the hell is that?”  He demanded.

“What?  What’s wrong?”  The worry was evident in her voice.  

 He pushed her away from him slightly, motioning towards her hips and thighs. 

“Oh, that.” She said shyly. 

Slowly Josh moved his left hand to trail across the small finger shaped bruises on her hips and thighs that marred her beautiful alabaster skin.  Ever so gently, he placed his fingers on the bruises.  At the slight contact, Donna hissed softly.

“I did this?  I bruised you?”

It was amazing really to see Josh transform from the arrogant cocky guy who a mere 10 seconds earlier was ready to jump in the shower with her, to the concerned worried man standing in front of her now.

“Josh, I know I may have mentioned this, I don’t know, like a million times already, but I’ll say it again, I have alabaster skin.  And one of the disadvantages of having such beautiful skin,” she said mockingly in an effort to get him to smile again, he was taking these bruises too personally, as though he had intentionally injured her.  This was another major difference between John and Josh.  Dr. Free Ride had always seemed proud of the bruises he left on her, as though they were a testament to his masculinity.  Josh, on the other hand, looked horrified at the thought that he may hurt her.  “The smallest thing will bruise me.  Josh, look at me.  Trust me; I didn’t feel any pain last night.”

He raised his eyes away from her bruised skin to look at her as she had directed.  She didn’t look upset or hurt, in fact she looked beautiful and desirable, her skin was practically glowing.

“Well, you may not have been in pain last night, but I do distinctly remember you screaming my name a few times.” 

Donna looked over at Josh; he looked so adorable and boyish, even when saying inappropriate things, that she simply lost her breath.

“Oh my god, do you ever stop?” she admonished, half-heartedly while pulling him towards the bathroom.

*****

Despite the previous day’s upheaval caused by the tropical storm the airport was surprisingly hassle free.  They were able to book an early morning flight to Austin without incident.  They boarded the plane and both took advantage of the two and a half hour flight to get some additional rest before they were forced to return to the never-ending chaos that was the campaign trail. 

Florida was hot, but Texas was bearable by comparison.  Apparently, March was one of more beautiful months in Austin since the temperatures stayed in the 70s and lower 80s.  Donna and Josh had no trouble navigating the streets of Austin so they found the campaign office easily.

They walked into the organised chaos, which personified a presidential campaign and located their new work area.  Before either one of them had a chance to settled in, CJ barrelled in the room.

“Thank god you’re here.  I’m been waiting forever.”  CJ complained loudly.

“What? What’s wrong?  What’s going on?”  Although he had been reluctant to leave Florida since that meant less time lying naked with Donna, the rush of being pushed into political strategist flowed through Josh.

“Not you, idiot boy.  I’ve been waiting for Donna.  I want someone to come with me and hand out Bartlett for America flyers...and if we happen upon some cowboys then hurray for us.”

“Seriously CJ?  I’m trying to get the Governor elected president and you want to steal my assistant so you can go flirt with cowboys?” he asked incredulously.

“Calm down Josh, I am just as committed to this campaign as you are, but really Texas?  Like we ever had any chance of winning Texas against Hoynes?  We lost Texas when the Governor learned how to speak Latin, so I’m going to enjoy my time here and meet as many authentic cowboys as I can and I need Donna to come with me.”

“Donna can’t go; we have important work to do.”

“Like what?”

 Silence.

“Umm...,” he trailed off, unable to think of anything when pressed.

“Exactly, you work that girl way too hard, remember she’s still a volunteer, she’s needs some fun, especially after being stuck with you in Florida yesterday. I bet that was no picnic for her.  She’s single and I’m single so we are going to find some single cowboys for some single fun.  You know what they say, ‘save a horse, ride a cowboy’.”

“CJ!”  Donna finally broke into the conversation, a pink flush colouring her cheeks.

“Come on, Donna.  It will be fun, have you ever met a real cowboy before?  They wear those sexy hats.”

“Those hats are funny....”  Josh muttered to himself.

“I guess it would be kinda fun, but if Josh needs me...,” she trailed off.

With a big sigh, Josh resigned himself to the inevitable.  “Fine, take Donna, but don’t be gone too long and no one will be riding anyone, do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Dad.”  CJ replied in a mocking tone.

“Thanks, Josh.”  Donna said and exited the office.  When she had almost reached the door leading out to the street, she said something to CJ, came jogging back into the room, and leaned over to whisper into Josh’s ear, “You know that you are the only person that I am thinking about riding, right?”

Donna rushed out of the room before he had a chance to reply.  Josh stood there, mouth open, playing an image of Donna and him together later that night, with Donna on top on him wearing nothing but a cowboy hat in his head on repeat.    

“Hey Josh.”

“Hmm....”

“Josh!”

Snapped out of his daydream, Josh looked over to see Toby standing in his doorway.

“I’d look good in a cowboy hat, right?  I could pull that off.”  Josh mused.

“Well, there aren’t too many Jewish cowboys, so I think you may want to try another profession, I know, how about political strategist.”  Toby barked back. 

“What can I do for you Toby?”

“Well, it’s not for me, Margaret needs help with some boxes, and I offered your assistance.”

“Wasn’t that nice of you.”  Josh supplied sarcastically.  

“Yeah, I’m a great guy like that.  Just go grab the boxes for her, or ask Donna to help, she’s freakishly strong.”

“Donna’s not here, she went to ogle cowboys with CJ, plus I don’t need her.  I can grab some boxes without supervision,” Josh protested.

“Sure you can,” Toby said while walking away.

“I can! I mean what could go wrong?”

*****

Less than a half hour later Donna returned to the campaign office, she had enjoyed the time she spent with CJ, plus a little harmless flirting with some genuine cowboys never hurt anyone.  While she did like working with Josh, it was nice to have a little girl talk.   Donna respected CJ, respected the way that she handled herself when dealing with the Governor, Leo, all the guys.  It was obvious that when CJ spoke others listened because she was respected and trusted.  That was how Donna wanted to feel, respected, and trusted, not only by Josh, but everyone she worked with, so when CJ complimented Donna it meant so much.

“You know, I don’t think I have had a chance to tell you how much I appreciate – we all appreciate the work you’re doing,” CJ told Donna while they walked up to the Main street intersection.  “I mean you’re so young, when I was your age I was still trying to figure out how to do laundry on my own and here you are, having driven across the country because you were inspired by the words the Governor said, it’s remarkable, really,” CJ finished.

“I wouldn’t go that far, CJ.  There’s nothing remarkable about me; it’s the Governor who’s remarkable.  When I heard him speak, I just knew that he was the real thing, you know?”

“I know.  But, I think you’re wrong, anyone who can put up with Joshua Lyman is remarkable.  Josh is pretty difficult, and it’s not, you know, out of the realm of possibility for him to piss people off on a regular basis, yet the 5 weeks you’ve been here he’s been more organised, on schedule and a little bit less of a jackass.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Josh like an annoying little brother, but that doesn’t make him less of a jackass.”

“Thanks, CJ.”  Donna said, and meant it sincerely.

When she returned from cowboy hunting, she entered Josh’s office, she wasn’t too surprised to find it empty, he had probably been dragged into another meeting. 

“Hey, has anyone seen Josh?”  She put the question to the gaggle of people milling about.

“I think he said something about helping Margaret with boxes – check down in the basement,” offered one of the nameless volunteers.

“Thanks,” she replied and took off to find Josh.

*****

“You look awful,” Donna said before she could stop herself.  Josh was alone, sitting on the floor, his legs stretched across the hall, an upturned box with pamphlets scattered everywhere completed the scene before her.  Donna hadn’t thought a person could look so unsteady while sitting down, but like most of the things she had thought she had known at one time, Josh had proved her wrong.

Josh lifted one hand in a mock salute.  “The other guy looks worse,” he teasingly joked. 

She took in his appearance, his shirt stained with blood from God knows where.  “I’m not sure it’s possible for another person to look worse than you do right now.”

“Thanks, cause that is exactly what every man hopes to hear from his girlfriend while he is laying on the floor bleeding – sarcasm.”

A flood of heat exploded through Donna, Josh had just referred to her as his girlfriend. They had yet to talk about their relationship in any meaningful way, so to hear Josh openly address her as his significant other, even though they were alone, made Donna feel like she was back in high school.

“Ah, a little help here, Donna.”  Josh waved her over.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, what happened to you?  And don’t try and tell me you got into a fight because I won’t believe you.”  

Josh let out a little groan as he shifted positions on the floor, muttering swear words under his breath.

“Where are you hurt?  Besides the obvious bleeding areas?”

“I was trying to grab those extra boxes filled with campaign flyers, a task which I believe I have an assistant for, but she took off with CJ and left me to fend for myself,” he said looking directly at Donna in an effort to make her feel guilty about his current state.

“Sorry?” she mumbled.

“You don’t sound sorry, anyway, when I reached up to grab the boxes they collapsed on me like a house of cards.  The sharp pointy end jabbed me in the chin and the shoulder, look, I’m bleeding,” he motioned towards the rip in his t-shirt where blood was visible, “I don’t like blood,” he finished.

“Ah, poor baby and your delicate system, do you want me to kiss it better?”  She asked with a saucy smile, leaning over him seductively, trailing her fingers down his right cheek.

“Hmm, now that sounds like a plan, but unfortunately we are in the middle of the campaign office and anyone could walk by, so we will have to wait until I can get you alone later tonight.”

“Oh, of course, I guess I wasn’t thinking clearly.”  She said, straightening up to her full height and reaching down to offer Josh a hand to pull himself up with.

A small half grin appeared on his face, “Don’t worry, I have that effect on women.”

“Do you ever stop?  Wait, don’t answer that.  Let’s go,” she quipped, while pulling him in the direction of his office, “You need to sit down, and I’ll see if I can find some ice for your chin.  You will probably have a bruise, you know.  But, hey, we’ll match.”  She said, pointing to her own bruised forehead, which was covered by a deliberate parting of her hair to the side.

They did make a fair pair with their matching bruises.

Donna pushed Josh into his office until he was seated in his chair.  She then took off to try to find some ice, she returned minutes later without ice but holding something else in her hand.

“So, no ice, but I found something just as good.  A popsicle! Tada!!”  She presented the red Popsicle, still in its wrapping as though she had just offered him the cure for cancer.

“Donna!  I can’t go around holding a popsicle to my face!  I’ll look like an idiot.” He moaned.  “This is all your fault,” he continued, “if you and CJ hadn’t gone out to ogle cowboys you would have been the one to grab the boxes and I would be bruise free.  Make note of this, from now on you will do all the heavy lifting.”

“And they say chivalry is dead...” she muttered under her breath.

“What did you say?”  He demanded.

“I said I’m writing your new rule down.”

Josh looked over at her and raised his eyebrows; he could clearly see she held no writing utensil in her hand.

“Well, I’m committing it to memory, so I can write it down later.”

Josh turned his whole body to look at Donna.  She appeared so professional, sitting in her chair with perfect posture.  Her blonde hair was pulled back into its requisite ponytail, every strand meticulously in place.  She looked radiant.  For not the first time he wondered what she saw in him.  Obviously, Josh was not without ego, but he knew that Mandy had been attracted to him not only because of his looks or personality but because of his job. In Washington, he was known as having a certain amount of influence and pull thanks to his previous job with Hoynes, but Donna didn’t seem interested in any of that.  Donna seemed to like, well just him, which made no sense because he was a necrotic workaholic with a receding hairline, while she was a smart, funny, breathtakingly beautiful 23-year-old woman.  He looked back at Donna again and was mesmerized by her.

“You’re so beautiful.”

Her lips parted as if to speak, but only a tiny airy sigh left her lips.  The sound tickled his skin, made him want to kiss her right there in his campaign office while people moved about in the background.  It was strange how almost everything about her made him want to kiss her.  He felt like a young man again.  Back in university, he’d flirted with every woman he’d met, accepting them when they offered themselves.  This was different.  He didn’t want a woman.  He just wanted Donna.

He stood up and walked over to shut the door behind Donna.  She watched him with acute interest, wondering what he was up to.  He made his way back over to her, and pulled her out of the chair.  He took her hand in his, “I want to kiss you.” 

“I thought there were too many people around.”

His lips touched hers, then he pulled back and whispered, “I don’t care.”  His lips found the corner of her mouth, then floated softly along her skin until she couldn’t help herself and her head fell back to allow him access to the curve of her neck.

The strap of her top slipped down her shoulder, exposing more of her alabaster skin. He lowered his head and kissed her along the edge of where her neck met her collarbone before coming back to kiss her mouth again.  He held her tightly; both of his hands cupping her bottom and pulling her forward and up into him until she was seized by an irrational need to wrap her legs around him.  Thank God she was wearing pants instead of a skirt, it was the only thing stopping her from throwing caution to the wind and having sex with Josh right there in his office.  However, when one of his hands reached up under her shirt she didn’t stop him, she felt him gently palm her breast and she moaned.

This had to stop.  

Reluctantly she pulled out of his embrace, stepping far enough away so that he couldn’t reach out for her.  “Anyone could walk in right now,” she admonished.

“Let’s go for a walk then,” he replied offering her his arm.

She eyed him suspiciously.  “You were just complaining that I was goofing off with CJ and now you want to leave too?”

“You and CJ went out to flirt with some local cowboy gomers, I just want to spend some time with my lovely assistant,” he answered, his voice full of mock sincerity.

“Now why don’t I believe you?  Besides we have to do something about your shoulder, I’m not sure what the security deposit is but I know that getting blood out of a beige carpet has got to be a pain in the ass, so you sit back down while I go and find a first aid kit.  And when I come back and patch you up, maybe we can talk about going for a walk.  Deal?”

“Deal.”

He watched her open the door and exit the room, his gaze settled on the gentle sway of her hips until she was no longer in his sights anymore.  He may have had a box nearly crush his skull, they were definitely going to get crushed at the Texas primary, but as long as he got to spend the day and night with Donna, Josh thought the world was exactly as it should be.  Tomorrow they would head to Illinois to prepare for the primary, where he had a feeling good things were going to happen.

TBC …


	6. Chapter 6

They did, as was correctly predicted by both Josh and CJ, lose Texas .  They didn’t just lose the Texas primary.  They got crushed.  It probably didn’t help that Governor Bartlett had made an unfortunate joke about not looking good in big hats, but nevertheless, they didn’t spend too much time dwelling on the Texas defeat.  In fact there was something to be said for bonding under negative circumstances.  Instead of taking their Texas defeat as a setback, the campaign staff seemed to be invigorated by the naysayers who predicted a Bartlett decline from there on.  They arrived in Chicago with a renewed sense of purpose.  They were going to do everything in their power to get Governor Bartlett an Illinois primary victory or they were going to die trying.

While Josh had anticipated the primary defeat, what he should have anticipated was that once he and Donna rejoined the campaign there wouldn’t be an opportunity for them to repeat the night they had shared together in Florida.  Although it wasn’t all bad news, at least not for Donna.  She had been upgraded from sleeping on the floor in Margaret’s room to an actual bed.  Although she still wasn’t on salary yet, she was optimistic that soon she would officially be a member of the paid staff.  While Donna was happy about having an actual bed to sleep in, Josh was definitely in a less than pleasant mood due to their current sleeping arrangements. He didn’t find Sam to be as an enjoyable roommate as he did Donna.  The one bright spot, if one could even call it that was that their rooms were located on the same floor only a few doors apart from each other.  

“May I escort you to your room?”  Josh asked as he bent over at the waist to imitate a low bow.

She laughed aloud, “It’s literally 5 feet away.”  She turned and pointed at the door to her hotel room.

“Your point being…?”

“You’ll look like an idiot, which I suppose is nothing new for you, so go ahead, please escort me to my room.”

She went to cross in front of him when he abruptly took hold of her arms and backed her up into the wall beside the door to her room.  Tilting her head up, he lowered his mouth to hers.  The kiss was slow and hot and full of promise. 

Although it went against everything her body was currently screaming at her, Donna’s mind was still in control.

“Josh,” she admonished as she stepped out of his arms.  “Are you crazy?  Anyone could have seen us.”

“Don’t worry; I checked the hall before I kissed you.  No one was going to see.”

“Oh, I forgot about your secret life as a spy,” she mocked.  “Josh, you know we have to be careful, neither of us wants to deal with an angry Leo,” she reminded him gently.

“You’re right,” he conceded, “but that doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.” 

“Oh, Josh, you’re never happy about anything,” she joked lightly.

He paused for a moment and then looked directly into her eyes as he spoke.

“I’m happy when I’m with you.”

She was stunned momentarily, needing a minute before she could respond, “Wow!”

“That was pretty smooth, huh?”

“How long have you been waiting to break out that line?”

“A little while now, been saving it for just the right moment.”

“Well done, Sir.”

“Does that mean we will be doing more kissing?”  He asked hopefully.

“Not a chance.”  She said while she entered her hotel room and closed the door on Josh.

“You’re no fun,” he screamed at the closed door.

“You’ll get used to it,” she yelled back.

*****

The next day, CJ found Josh in a familiar pose, hunched over his desk, shirt sleeves rolled up past his elbows staring down at a memo that, judging by the look on his face, was making him angry.

“Josh”

“Hmm”

“Josh”

“Hmm”

“Josh!”

“What?”

“It’s so nice that we can have these meaningful conversations, they really make my day,” CJ deadpanned.

Josh dropped the memo onto his desk to give CJ his full attention.

“Yes, Claudia Jean, how may I help you today?”

“I need to steal Donna for awhile.”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry.  I thought I was pretty clear.  No, you cannot have Donna.”

“Listen Buddy, she’s not a toy, so it’s not really up to you if I can ‘have’ her or not,” CJ fumed.  “But, out of consideration for your gigantic, yet fragile ego, I thought I should let you know that Donna will be helping me out today…,” CJ trailed off.  

They locked eyes, both waiting to see who would break contact first.  Who would be the first to back down?

“Fine, you can take Donna, but only because I’m going to be stuck in meetings all day, but don’t keep her out too long, I want her back here by the time I am done with my stuff.”

“Fine.”  CJ went to exit the room, but stopped before she reached the door.  It was obvious that she had more to say, yet she just stood there staring at Josh.

“What?  Quit staring, you’re freaking me out.”

“Listen, I wanna talk to you about Donna.”

“I thought we just had a conversation about her.”

“No, I mean we did, but that’s not what I meant, I wanna talk about you and Donna.”

“Excuse me?”  Josh gulped.  There was no way that CJ knew anything about him and Donna.  They had been too careful.  But after so many years in politics Josh knew not to tip his hand, always let the other side play their cards first. 

“Well, it‘s probably not a surprise to someone with such a large ego, but it is pretty obvious that Donna has a little crush on you – please let me finish before you interrupt,” CJ raised a hand in the air, warding off any comment from Josh.  “I think it’s only natural that she would develop a crush on you, I mean in her last relationship with a man her confidence and self-esteem were decimated, but with you it’s so obvious that you can barely function without her constant guidance that she probably thinks that you hung the moon.” 

“CJ, I’m not –“

“Look, I know I joke with you and Sam, my two Idiot Boys, but I do know you’re a good guy, you can even be pretty sweet sometimes.  I know you would never take advantage of Donna, you’re not like that, but Donna is really vulnerable right now and I just want you to be careful so her little crush doesn’t turn into anything else.”

“CJ, Donna is just my assistant.  There’s nothing else going on.”  He hoped his poker face was convincing enough.  Although some of CJ’s words had bothered him more than he cared to admit.  Was Donna only sleeping with him because she was vulnerable?  That was a depressing thought.  Was she just using him to gain her confidence back?  No, that wasn’t like Donna, she would never use anyone for her own selfish purposes.  “It’s not like I’m the worst she could do you know…,” he trailed off, speaking more to himself than CJ.

“What?  I didn’t catch that last part.”

“Nothing ,” he muttered.  “Donna!”

Almost immediately, a blonde head poked inside the doorway.  “Josh, what did I tell you about shouting?” she admonished.

“Do it more often?”

“You think you’re a pretty funny guy don’t ya?”

“I don’t think I’m funny. I know I’m funny.”

“Okay, could you two stop, for like a minute, please?”  When Donna and Josh remained silent, CJ took it as her cue to continue, “Donna, I need your help today.  I want you to go downtown and pass out some flyers and while you’re there please stop by the local WGN station and drop off this package.  When you get back let me know because there is a lot of stuff I need your help with.”

“Sounds great, thanks CJ.”  Donna took the package out of CJ’s hands.  Then she ran back to her desk to grab her things – a light jacket in case it grew cold, her wallet with a bit of money, and a stack of Bartlett for America flyers, and headed out the door.

It was a lovely spring day with just enough breeze to gently tussle her hair.  She headed down past the main intersection where the area was busier, it was a bit far from the campaign office, but she liked to walk, and it was nice to be on her own, away from the mass of humanity huddled together in the campaign office.

The streets were as one would expect at midday, absolutely crowded so she turned east, passing by several stores before crossing the road.  Cars roared by her, but she easily manoeuvred her way across the road and step onto the pavement and –

Oh my God!

Was it...?  No, it couldn’t be, he never went to Chicago, or at least he didn’t before,  he never took her no matter how many times she had asked, that didn’t mean he couldn’t be here now –

Donna could practically hear her heart pound in her chest; she had to remind herself how to breathe in order to allow air to enter her lungs.

There was no mistaking him now; she could see his sun bleached blond hair, his devastatingly handsome profile.  His looks had always been unique, it was what had attracted her to him in the first place, he wasn’t conventionally handsome, but there was a special quality to him that Donna found impossible to resist.

Donna felt tears, hot and furious, burning her eyes.  This wasn’t fair.  She was a new person now.  She wasn’t the same naive girl she had been 5 weeks ago before she had joined the campaign.  She was Josh Lyman’s assistant, she was smart and organised and people depended on her.  She shouldn’t be crying.  She hated herself for acting so weak.  Where had all of her confidence gone?  When she really needed it, it had abandoned her.  Less than 72 hours earlier Donna had aspired to be like CJ, confident and assertive.  CJ had an innate sense of calm and composure, she commanded attention when she entered a room, and not only because she was also a 6-foot tall woman, no it was because she exuded confidence. How could she ever hope to be like CJ if she couldn’t even handle a simple encounter with an ex-boyfriend?

She couldn’t stand there on the street anymore or he would see her.  With a choked cry of frustration, she turned on her heels and blindly ran down the street back towards the campaign office.  She never looked to see if he had recognised her, she was too focused on getting to the office, the office was safe territory, there would be no reason why he would ever enter a democratic campaign office.  She slowed her pace as the store holding the campaign came into view, she couldn’t very well go trampling into the door, she would draw too much attention to herself.  She just needed to get back to Josh’s office, since he was gone for the rest of the day she could use that space for some much needed privacy and collect her thoughts.

She made her way unmolested through the front door, she could see Josh’s office, she just had to walk a few more steps, and she would be safe.  She threw open the door, not caring that it slammed shut behind her and collapsed into a visitor’s chair.  She leaned over and placed her head between her legs in an attempt to even out her breathing.

“Donna?”

She jumped a foot, probably more, she was so startled by the voice of another person that she almost fell out of the chair she was sitting in.

Sam.  

It was Sam.  Smart, trustworthy, sweet Sam.  If she hadn’t had met Josh, if he didn’t occupy her thoughts, Sam was the type of guy she used to be attracted to: preppy, clean cut, polite.  She’s not sure when her taste in men changed where she found herself obsessed with slightly rumpled, egotistical men, or one man in particular. 

She had ran into the room so quickly that she didn’t even notice Sam, she was so focused on getting into the room she forgot to check if there were any other occupants.

“Donna?  What’s wrong?  What happened?  I thought you were handing out flyers,” he asked, walking over to kneel by her side.

“It’s nothing,” she said, blinking rapidly.

“Why don’t we go outside and get some air?”  Sam suggested.

“No, I don’t want to go back on the street again,” she protested.

“Okay, how about we head to the area in the back of the store, I think there might be a picnic table there.”

She swallowed the lump that was caught in her throat, her face drawn and taut.  “Okay,” she agreed.  Then she remembered that in her rush to get away from Free Ride she had forgotten to drop off CJ’s package at WGN.  God, couldn’t she do anything right?  CJ had trusted her with one small task and she couldn’t even accomplish that.  

“Sam, I was supposed to drop this off for CJ,” Donna raised her hand, holding the package in the air, “but I completely forgot.  CJ is going to kill me.”

“Don’t worry,” Sam took the envelope from Donna and called over a volunteer, that although Donna had met before, she couldn’t remember his name.

“Could you please take this straight to WGN.  No stops, it’s really important.”

With CJ’s errand being taken care of, they quietly made their way through the office and exited through the back door.  As Sam had predicted there was indeed a picnic table where they could both sit down.  He gave her a few minutes to compose herself and waited for her to speak, but when she didn’t he couldn’t remain silent any longer.

“What happened?”  He prompted.

She looked at him with her perfect blue eyes – and he could tell that she was deciding what to do.  Tell the truth or lie.  

Her lips trembled, and finally in a voice so quiet and halting it nearly broke his heart, she said, “There was someone....someone that I used to know, who I didn’t want to see.”

It was obvious that no further explanation was coming, so they just sat there, not a word passed between them, yet Donna felt relaxed and at ease.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Sam asked quietly.  Donna really did like Sam, he was an easy-going guy, a great conversationalist, and he seemed to know when not to speak.  He had let her sit in peace until he could tell she was emotionally ready to talk.

She shook her head in the negative in response to his earlier question, still not looking at him.  She wasn’t trying to avoid Sam specifically, she would have avoided anyone at that moment.  Sam, who probably had a million things to accomplish: speeches to write, meetings to attend, had dropped everything because he had seen a person in trouble – a friend in need.  So they sat, not speaking, not looking at each other, they just sat next to each other looking out over an empty parking lot letting the time pass by.

But he didn’t deserve her silence, he had found her upset and had done his best to help.  She turned to look at him.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, but I haven’t really done anything.”

“Yes, you have.  You found me having a nutty and you took me out here to calm down,” she felt hesitant, but she continued, “Plus, I know you have questions, but you didn’t ask them, you just let me be.  You are a good man, Sam Seaborn,” She finished by giving reaching over and giving his hand a gentle squeeze.

“Come on, let’s head back inside.” 

“Yeah. Sam, I hate to ask you this since you have been so great, but do you think we could not tell Josh about this?  I wouldn’t want to give him the impression that I’m crazy or anything,” she offered weakly.

“Donna, I don’t know,” he trailed off, but then continued, “I think you should talk to Josh.”

“Yeah, I should, but I’m afraid he’ll just make fun of me.”

“He won’t – okay, so he might a little, but when it really matters Josh will be there for you, whatever it is, one of his greatest qualities that I admire is his loyalty.  You are a part of the campaign now and Josh protects his own, we all do for that matter.” 

“Thanks, Sam.  I’ll talk to him later.  I promise,” she grabbed his hand and gave it another gentle squeeze as a sign of her sincerity.  “Now let’s head back before Toby comes out here looking for you.”

*****

Although Donna had messed up the two small tasks that she had been given so far, she was determined to work her ass off the rest of the day to prove her worth when she noticed Josh had returned from his scheduled meeting.  Although she had promised Sam she would talk to Josh, she wasn’t sure that was the best idea.  She struggled with her decision until the guilt she would eventually feel for lying to Sam won out, so she made her way over to Josh, determined to get it over with in a quick and efficient way.

“Hey.”

“Hey, you’re done already?”

“No, yeah, well kinda of.”  She sputtered.

“Ah, well that was clarifying in the way that it wasn’t at all,” he openly mocked her.

“Ha ha.  You are so funny,” she stopped, but then forced herself to continue.  “You know what else is funny; you are going to laugh when I tell you this.  When I was passing out flyers, you know who I saw?  John. You know Dr. Free Ride?”

Josh simply stared at her, his brown eyes cold and detached.

“Josh?”

“Sorry, I’m just waiting for you to get to the funny part?”  He replied coolly.

“Okay, so I didn’t mean funny ‘ha ha’, I meant funny ironic, you know?”

“Where did you see him?” he asked, ignoring her attempts to lighten the mood.

“When I was handing out flyers.” She answered slowly.

“I didn’t ask when. Where exactly did you see him?  What street were you on?”

“Why?”

“Because I want to know that’s why.”

“Oh, Josh.  It doesn’t matter where I saw him, he’s not going to be there now, it was over a hour ago.  Plus I don’t think he even saw me,” she added, hoping that would placate him.

“An hour ago?  Donna - ,” he started, but she quickly cut him off.

“Josh, look, I didn’t tell you this so you could go off and play white knight, I just thought that you should know, so that we don’t keep anything from each other, you know?”  She neglected to mention that it was actually Sam who thought Josh should know, better keep that piece of information to herself for now.

He looked torn between hitting the streets searching for a man that if he stopped to think about it he would realize that he didn’t even know what Dr. Free Ride looked like and abiding by Donna’s wishes.  In the end common sense won out and Josh picked up the memo he had been reading when Donna had first walked into his office.

“Fine,” he grudgingly relented, “but if you see that asshole again, I don’t want you waiting an hour to tell me, okay?”

“Okay.  I have to get back to CJ now.”

“Fine, I’ll see you later.  Tonight is a big night.  We’re going to win this, I can feel it.”

*****

They had all gathered in the Governor’s suite to watch the results live on television.  The mood was optimistic and joyous.  Everyone was positive they would be celebrating a victory momentarily.  The only somber person in the hotel room was Donna, not that she wasn’t ecstatic about the Governor’s win.  No, the reason Donna was sad was that she knew that the news she had to tell Josh would devastate him.

 “Josh?”

“Donna!  You've got to get happy, Donna!  We just won the Illinois primary!  Come dance with me!”

 “No--Josh--no ... Josh--your father died.” 

What happened next passed in a blur.  Josh ordered Donna to book him a flight home and then took off to talk to Leo.  Donna felt torn between wanting to offer comfort as his girlfriend and arrange his trip home as his assistant.  She decided that she could do both.  She quickly found him a flight leaving for Connecticut in a few hours, so she felt comfortable going up to his room to check on him.

She told herself that she just wanted to make sure that he had packed the right things, that man was probably going to shove a few random pieces of clothing into his backpack and head to the airport.  She knocked softly on the door, hoping that he would let her in; she wasn’t sure how he reacted when faced with pain or sadness.  When she thought about how they have only known each other for 6 weeks, have been together, whatever that meant, for only a little over a week, she felt unsure.  Would he even want to see her?  Especially since she had been the one to be the bearer of bad news concerning his father’s death.

She knocked and walked in when he opened the door and quietly closed it behind her.  She made sure the door was locked and went straight into his arms.

“I know…,” she started, which was a lie, she didn’t know. She had been lucky enough to have never lost anyone close to her so she was grasping for the right words, “losing a parent hurts, there’s nothing wrong with feeling grief.”

“Oh, Donna.”  His mouth burrowed into her neck, placing hard open kisses into her throat.

 His hands tugged at her blouse, pulling it out of her trousers.  He then reached his hand under her blouse, up to the clasp of her bra. She didn’t protest, didn’t make a sound.  She let him remove every piece of clothing from her body.

He pushed her towards the bed until she fell back on the mattress.  He stripped off his clothing in a quick and efficient manner, all the while never taking his eyes off of her.  When he stood before her naked she reached up and pulled his mouth down to hers and held him, shifting her body to make way for his to rest against hers.

He felt hungry and needy; he was overcome with an overwhelming desire to possess her.  He thrust his tongue into her mouth and she gasped at the sensation.  He lifted his head and looked down at her; he took in her breasts, saw her body shiver and lost himself in her strikingly beautiful blue eyes.

“Josh,” she moaned softly.

His name on her lips was like a trigger, there was no stopping him.  He groaned as he drove into her, drowning in the joy of feeling wanted.  His mouth ground into hers as the rhythm grew faster and more urgent.  He lifted his hips and leaned back slightly to let her watch.  It was the most intense sensation, watching her watching them.  He felt like he was plunging into molten heat, sheathing himself inside her.

He groaned, shocked, as pleasure shuddered through him in slow waves every time he moved.  She watched his face, drowning in his brown eyes, so full of need and desire, but she could also see sadness.  She wanted to take away his pain, if only for a little while.  She lifted her hips, moaning as it increased the pleasure they were sharing.

He leaned down, his mouth next to her left ear so he could whisper to her.  He whispered shocking things, loving things, teasing things, smiling at her every reaction.  His hands slid under her hips and moved them to his preferred rhythm.  She didn’t try and stop him, this was about him, she didn’t care about her needs, she wanted him to lose himself in her.  He closed his eyes and pushed down hard, deep, pinning her wrists to the bed, looking straight into her wide eyes. 

“Donna,” he whispered hoarsely.

“Oh, Josh,” she cried out, arching her back.

He ground down into her.  Clenching his teeth, driving for satisfaction, “I’m sorry, this is so fast….”

“No…it’s amazing,” she gasped.  She tried to match his rhythm with quick, sharp movements of her hips.

He heard her whimper, followed by a moan, which was the last sound he registered before he exploded inside of her.  He arched over her, still shuddering, placing soft kisses on her forehead.  Eventually, he collapsed to his side, pulling her close so they could lay together.

“I have to go…” he trailed off softly.  He drew away from her and went to the bathroom so he could get cleaned up and dressed.  He returned a few minutes later and sat down on the bed beside her.

“I have to go or I’ll miss my plane.  I have to go bury my father.”

“I know I can’t…but I wish I could go with you,” she whispered quietly, unsure if she had just overstepped the boundary of their new relationship.   

“I wish you could come too, but there would be too many questions that I don’t want you to have to deal with…,” he trailed off.

“I know.  Go.  Please be safe.  I’ll be here when you get back,” she promised earnestly.

He leaned over the bed to place a gentle almost chaste kiss against her lips.

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

She wished she could stay in bed where she could still feel close to him, the pillow next to her still smelled like Josh, like them really, but she knew that the last thing that Josh needed was to deal with the ramifications of someone finding her naked in his bed.  She reluctantly lumbered out of bed and took a quick shower. She couldn’t very well return to the rest of the campaign smelling like sex.  She hoped that she had made the right decision by staying behind.  Although Josh had said it was better that she stayed behind she also knew that if she really pressed the issue she could have found a way to go with him.   

She made sure the room was presentable and gathered up the rest of Josh’s things that he would need when he returned to the campaign to take with her.  She turned off the light and closed the door, silently praying that Josh would be fine without her.

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

While Josh flew east towards Connecticut, the rest of the campaign boarded a flight and headed west to California.  Donna had always wanted to visit California; as a child she had begged her parents incessantly to take her to Disney Land.  She had wanted to go Hollywood, see the Walk of Fame so she could press her hands into the same indentations that had immortalized her childhood heroes like Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn.

Now, however, all thoughts of sun and surf in her head had been replaced by Josh and his grief.  For the millionth time in the last two days, she questioned her decision to let him go home alone.  It was probably for the best, she tried to convince herself.  How awkward would it be for Josh to explain to his mother and the rest of his family why he had brought his assistant with him to his father’s funeral?  No, Josh needed to focus on his family, offer comfort to his mother, that should be his number one priority.  But she couldn’t stop herself from wondering who would be comforting Josh?  Who would be there to help ease his pain?

Donna was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she didn’t hear Sam take the seat next to her on the plane.

“Hey,” he opened.  “How are you doing?”

“Good.  Fine.  Great,” she paused then continued in a shaky voice.  “I’m worried about Josh.”

“I know, me too.  But, I’ve known Josh a long time, and in my experience he always pulls through.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it.”  She turned her attention out the airplane window, taking in the sights of the puffy white clouds drifting by.

Obviously not content to let the conversation end there Sam continued, “He’s going to be fine.  And you know why?”

She turned back towards Sam and from the expectant look on his face; she quickly surmised that his question was not rhetorical.

“No, why?”

“Because he’s not alone.  He has Leo and CJ and me and even Toby.  But most importantly he has you.” He finished, giving her a pointed look.

“Of course, I’ll be there for him, it’s my job as his assistant to make his work as stress free as possible, but you know Josh, he thrives in high pressure situations.”

“You’re an excellent assistant, but that’s not what I’m talking about.”

“Sam.  Please.”  Her eyes pleaded with him.  She was unsure if Josh had confided something to Sam, if he had figured things out on his own, or if he was just fishing for information.  She knew she wasn’t emotionally strong enough to have a discussion about her relationship with Sam in an airplane full of people, especially since she hadn’t had a conversation with Josh about her relationship with *Josh*.

He must have seen the desperate look written across her face because he mercifully let the topic drop and moved on to campaign related business.

At the exact same time on the other side of the country, Josh was helping his mother make funeral arrangements.  In a desperate attempt to not become emotionally overwhelmed with grief, Josh had convinced his mother to leave all the details with him.  If he had a job, a specific task, to occupy his mind he wouldn’t have to think about all the hours, all the days he had spent away from his family in Washington.  He should have called more, made more of an effort to visit when he had had the chance because now his father was gone and there would never be another opportunity, there would never be any more time together.

He needed a distraction.  He wished Donna was there with him, spouting off some ridiculous fact or inane piece of trivia.  He just needed to hear her voice, the way she would say his name, sometimes in a quick burst of righteous indignation, or in his favourite way, in a soft moan of pleasure.  He reached over to grab his cell phone, but stopped when he noticed the time.  It was still morning and she was three time zones away.  Even if the campaign plane had landed, she would probably be in bed trying to sneak in a few hours of rest.  The last thing he wanted to do was deprive her of what little sleep she could manage to get.

Resigned to going another few hours without hearing her voice, Josh threw on some clothes and headed downstairs to find his mother.

*****

While Josh was never far from Donna’s thoughts, the hectic pace associated with the ramp up to the California primary left very little time for personal contemplation.  Without Josh, Donna served as a roving assistant to all members of the senior staff.  Donna really enjoyed learning new facets of the campaign.  With Josh her primary role was focusing on political strategies to win over delegates.  While everyone contributed to shaping the governor’s platform it was interesting to work with Sam, and even Toby (they had gotten past the ‘coffee incident’ as she had referred to it in her head).  She now had a new appreciation of the difficulty of writing a speech for a genius. 

She had even got to help CJ by appearing, along with a few others, on a few local television stations in an effort to reach youth voters.  She was so pumped by her mere 30 seconds on air; a huge toothy smile was plastered across her face for the rest of the day.  When she had first got off the air, her first thought was  that she couldn’t wait to recount the whole experience second-by-second to Josh.

Her smile had quickly slipped off her face when she remembered that Josh wasn’t with them.  He was in Connecticut planning his father’s funeral.  Being Protestant and from Wisconsin, she was unfamiliar with Jewish funerals, so last night or this morning depending on which time zone you were in, she had skipped out on the opportunity to get a few hours of rest and had instead located the communal area in the hotel and used the computer with Internet access.  She had done some research  (which should hardly come as a shock to anyone) to try and understand what Josh would be doing while he was away from her in an attempt to feel closer to him.

According to her research, immediately following a death, the deceased should not, according to tradition, be left unattended. A Shomer, or "watchman," should stay with the deceased from the time of death until the funeral and burial. Respect was always shown to the deceased as well as toward the mourners. This was one of the reasons why Traditional Jewish funerals were held so soon after death. It was more respectful to inter the body within a reasonable amount of time rather than having an unnecessary delay. Funerals usually last about twenty minutes and consisted of the recitation of Psalms, Scripture readings and a eulogy. Prior to or after the services, the mourners performed the ritual of K'riah, the rending of the garment.  During Shiva, mourners remained at home and the Jewish community came and offered comfort to the family. The only time a mourner was supposed to leave the home was on Shabbat to attend services in the Synagogue. During the Shiva period the community goes into the mourner's home and was there that the three daily (morning, afternoon and evening) services were held. The Kaddish prayer was recited during these services. 

The atmosphere in the house of mourning should be one of dignity, and one should avoid creating a party atmosphere during Shiva. Talk should be centered around the deceased and Shiva should be a time to remember with fondness many of the events of which the deceased was a part. 

Being surrounded by research, Donna felt more comfortable and relaxed.  While she still missed Josh, she felt calm knowing that he would be surrounded by family and friends during his mourning.  

*****

The next day, Josh padded down to the kitchen to find his mother already awake and sipping coffee.

“What are you doing up?  I told you to rest.  I’ll take care of everything.”

“I know you will, but I can’t just lie around all day.  I need to clean the house so it’s ready for visitors.”

“Mom, I told you, I’ll hire a cleaning crew.  You don’t need to do anything.”

“It’s my house, Joshua.  I will clean it; I will not allow some stranger into my house.”

Knowing there were much more contentious battles ahead Josh gave into his mother’s wishes.  A few moments of silence went by before his mother spoke again.

“So, you came here alone?”

“Yes...” Josh began, unsure where this conversation was going.

“I thought maybe you would be bringing someone with you.”

“No, I told you I broke up with Mandy; did you think I was still going to ask her to come?”

“No, of course not.  Mandy is a lovely girl, or she could be if she was with some who actually complemented her personality.  No, I thought maybe you would have brought Donna.”

“Donna?  Why would I bring Donna?  I didn’t think I would have any need for an assistant while I was here.”

“Josh, all I hear, when you remember to call me, is ‘Donna, said this today,’ and ‘Donna and I went here today....’  Half of our phone calls you spend telling me about Donna.

A faint blush warmed Josh’s cheeks before he protested, “That’s just because she’s my assistant, so we have to spend so much time together,” he finished weakly.

“Please don’t be obtuse, Joshua.”

“What?  How am I being obtuse?”  He demanded.

“I don’t have the energy to argue with you.  If you want me to believe that Donna is only your assistant, that’s fine.  But we both know she is a lot more than that and you should do something about it.” 

Immediately Josh felt guilty for snapping at his mother, “I love you mom, but you don’t think anyone can live properly unless you’re telling them how to go about it.”

“I’m just trying to help,” she said exasperated, “you’re all alone,” she continued in a miserable tone.  “What will happen to you when I die?”

She could tell that he wasn’t shocked by the question, but when he remained silent, she continued, “I just want to see you happy.  You should get married; have children to play with, now while you’re still young.”

“Mom,” he huffed, “I have a crazy life. I’m trying to get a man elected president.  Most normal women can’t, or won’t, put up with the hours I work.”

“I’m not trying to run your life, Joshua.  I just want you to be happy.”

“Harassing me about not having a wife or kids is not making me happy.”

“I know.”

“I miss Dad too,” he whispered quietly.

Josh walked over to the counter to make himself a piece of toast for breakfast.  He was more bothered than he cared to admit about his mother’s comments.  He wasn’t ready for marriage, just because he was almost 40 didn’t mean he had to get married.  He had a lot of single friends, granted most of them were single because they were now divorced, but that only solidified Josh’s position.  When he got married, it was going to be for life.  His parents were married for 45 years because they took their vows seriously.  When he got married he would be just as committed and dedicated as his parents were, but how could he dedicate any time or effort to a wife or kids if he was working 14 to 16 hour days?  However, his father had been a lawyer with a busy schedule as well, he could remember numerous occasions during his childhood when his father was absent, yet his marriage worked, so it must be possible.

Josh hesitated before speaking, the last thing he wanted to do was upset his mom, but he needed an honest answer.

“Mom, did you ever feel like, I don’t know how to say this, but did you ever feel like you weren’t dad’s number one priority?”

“What do you mean?”

“I know dad loved you, loved us, but he worked so much, did you ever feel like you came second to the job? “

“I knew who your father was before I married him; it wasn’t a surprise that he was a workaholic.  I accepted that part of him, were there days when I wished he had spent more time with me?  Of course, but overall I wouldn’t have changed any time I spent with your father.” 

“Maybe you were just overly understanding.  There can’t be too many women like you.”

“Well, I am rather unique,” she joked lightly, but then continued in a more serious tone.  “The key to our relationship was that I understood that your father’s drive made him who he was.  If I asked him to work less or be less dedicated, it would have changed who he was.”

“But that makes him sound selfish, that you had to be the one to make the compromises, while he got to be who he wanted to be.”

“You’re missing the point, Josh.  I knew that if I asked your father to work less, or even quit his job, he would have because I was his number one priority. I knew that if I pushed him, he would have chosen me, so I never asked.  I didn’t have to.  You’ll find someone like that.  Someone who can see that the drive and desire you have for politics makes you who you are.  And when you find that right person you won’t hesitate for a second to give it up for them.”  With that last comment, she gave Josh a soft kiss on his cheek and walked out of the kitchen.

Could he do what his father did?  Could he devote the majority of his time and energy to his work but still have a successful and happy home life?  Although his mother seemed happy in her marriage, he couldn’t stop himself from feeling that Donna deserved more (perhaps an uncharitable thought which implied that his mother didn’t.)  Really, what was he doing thinking about Donna and marriage?  He had just finished telling himself that he was too young to be married.  Yet, once he was left alone with his thoughts the first place his mind went to when he thought of marriage was Donna.  But why?  He had only known her for 2 months. Their, whatever you what to call it, had only started a month ago, so there was no reason for him to be contemplating marriage.   It was probably just the heightened emotional circumstances involved in planning his father’s funeral playing havoc with his thoughts.

Josh wandered over to the kitchen counter and poured himself a cup of coffee, which immediately brought Donna and her constant refusal to bring him coffee, back into his mind.  Getting the governor elected president was probably the most important thing he was going to do in his life.  How could he balance that and a relationship with Donna?  Once they won the election, and they would Josh thought arrogantly, and they started to work in the White House when would they have time for a relationship?  If they were together personally, they definitely couldn’t work together professionally.  So when would he see her? Late night drinks?  Crawling into bed after a 16 hour day?  How long would she put up with his inaccessibility?  The thought that scared the most was that she would put up with it, she wouldn’t complain because she knew how important the job was to him.  She would settle for less because that’s the kind of person she was, putting other people’s needs before her own.  He couldn’t stand to be that guy to her, the type who asked her to put her plans on hold because he was more important.  He wouldn’t be another Free Ride to her.

He knew what he had to do; he was just hoping he had the strength to go through with it.

*****

Two days later, after Josh had finished burying his father, he returned to the campaign.  Tonight would be the California primary and from all the numbers he had seen they should walk away from California with a primary win.  But before he could slip back into his campaign role, he needed to have, what would probably be one of the most painful conversations of his life.

It was important for him to make Donna understand that she had done nothing wrong; she had never done anything wrong.  Although the line was trite, in this situation it was true: It wasn’t her, it was him.  Unfortunately, it would probably be little comfort to her.  He would just be another guy in a line of guys who had abused her trust, taken what they had wanted and then abandoned her when they were done.  The fact that in her mind she would equate him to Dr. Free Ride ate at him.

Ending the relationship was the right decision, Donna deserved more.  She deserved more than a neurotic, balding workaholic pushing 40.  She deserved someone who could devote his time and energy to her, love and appreciate her the way she meant to be. 

As strong as he felt about his decision, he also knew he was too much of a selfish bastard to let her go completely.  To completely cut her out of his life would be impossible.  Now that he knew the pleasure of simply being around her there was no way he’d let her walk away completely.  He still wanted, no needed, her to work with him.  In a way, it would be the perfect punishment.  Working closely with her everyday; yet, never being allowed to hold her, touch her, kiss her again.  It would be torture, and it was what he deserved.

Upon walking into the campaign office, he instantly knew that he decision to end things with Donna was a whole later easier to rationalize when they weren’t in the same state, let alone the same room.  Seeing her now, weaving around obstacles in the office, his breath literally caught in his throat.  How could he have forgotten how beautiful she was? He had missed her so much. 

She leaned over to drop a file off on CJ’s desk.  CJ must have said something funny because a small trickle of laughter escaped from Donna’s lips. 

Despite the chaotic nature of the room, it wasn’t long before someone finally noticed his presence.

"You're back." 

Leave it to Sam to state the obvious.

"I'm back.  Where do you have me set up?"

 Sam guided Josh over to a small office in the back corner of the building.  Josh threw his bag on the floor and started looking through the pink message slips left on his new desk. 

"How was it?"

"About what you'd imagine it to be."

"How's your mom?"

"She's getting by."

Sam paused in the doorway, closing the door until it was left slightly ajar. 

"Have you talked to Donna?"

"Donna? No, why?"  Josh felt a wave of panic course through his body. Was there something wrong with Donna?

"She was worried about you. I thought you would want to talk to her first thing."

"Why?"

Sam sighed deeply. "You don't have to pretend, it's rather obvious."

"This little hinting game you're playing is getting really annoying. If you want to say something, just say it."

"Fine, if that's the way you want it. You're sleeping with Donna."

Josh didn't respond, instead he practically glowered at his best friend, so Sam continued, "It's just that she's not the normal type of woman you usually find yourself ensorcelled by."

"I'm not ensorcelled."

"No, of course not." Sam waved a hand idly in the air.

"Donna's just my assistant."

"Of course."

"She's a sweet girl, but as you said she's not my type."

"Of course."

"Damn it Sam, can you pick another phrase besides 'of course'."

"Of course."

"You're just a laugh riot, you know that right?"

"I do know that, most people don't appreciate my humour the way they should." Sam paused and then turned so he was looking Josh directly in the eyes. "So, if Donna is just your assistant it would be fine if I asked her out?"

The words hit Josh like a physical blow. He tensed, eyes narrowing as he met Sam's amused, knowing gaze.

"It would be fine."

"You're lying. Why are you acting like a jackass Josh when it is so obvious that you are after her?"

"Why would I want such a young, naive, dairy feed chatterbox?  Have you ever known me to pursue a relationship with a woman like her?  She's my assistant. That's all. It’s not my fault if Donna thinks I'm irresistible and has developed a little crush."

Sam nodded once at the words before pulling open the door, which had been ajar, to exit only to reveal Donna, wide-eyes and pale-faced. It was obvious that she had overheard.

Donna looked from Sam back to Josh and opened her mouth to speak, thinking that she ought to say something. But there was nothing to say, really. Josh had said it all. She took a deep breath, his words echoing around her head. Why would I want such a young, naive, dairy feed chatterbox? Well, at least now she knew the truth. Josh never had any intention of trying to start a real relationship with her; she was just a distraction, a campaign fling. Really, there was some comfort to be found in knowing the truth now before she wasted another 3 years in a relationship with a man she would later discover, would never feel the way about her that she did about him. Unfortunately, she didn't feel that comfort at this exact moment, but surely at some point in the future, she would be able to think about his words and not feel them hit her like a punch to the stomach. 

After the initial wave of nausea passed, she felt a new emotion.  She felt anger, anger surging through her like a tropical storm. All she wanted was to strike back at this arrogant, self-important man who seemed to be nothing like what she thought he was.

"Well," she said, sarcasm dipping off of every word, as she pushed her way into the office to face Josh, "you seem to have a rather inflated view of yourself, although that is hardly surprising."

Donna never took her eyes off of Josh, but she did hear Sam's small cough followed by, “I think I hear Toby calling me." He quickly exited the room, closing the door behind him with a soft click. 

"How dare you?" She continued.

Josh moved towards her. "I didn't mean..."

Damn it, Josh cursed to himself.  This was not how this conversation was supposed to go.  He was going to take her somewhere private, sit her down and explain that while he cared about her greatly, their relationship wasn’t going to work out.  But, of course that wasn’t what had happened; Sam had to walk in and badger him about Donna until he lost his cool.

“God Damn Sam,” he swore out loud.

“Oh, no, don’t blame this on Sam.  He didn’t put those words in your mouth, that was all you.”

Frustrated beyond belief Josh tried again. “Donna, what you heard was –”

She cut him off before he had a chance to finish. “Is what you said true? Do you not want a relationship with me?”  She said, proud that her voice only shook a little.

“Donna, it’s not that simple...” he began.

“No, Josh, it really is, either you want a relationship with me or you don’t.  Which is it: yes or no?”

He forced himself to look her in the eyes. If he was going to do this now, he wasn’t going to be a coward.

“No.”

She needed to get out of this room before she burst into tears, she could feel her eyes filling with liquid, but she refused to let him see how much he had hurt her.  “Well, at least you didn’t hide under a desk this time, so you are getting better at breaking up with women.”

“Donna, please.  Sit down so we can talk,” he pleaded with her.  He couldn’t leave things the way there were now.

“I’m done talking.”  Donna turned back towards the door.  Suddenly, Josh was next to her, grabbing her hand firmly before she could grasp the door knob.

“I’m not done talking.”

“Josh,” Donna said, her eyes had quickly replaced her tears with unbridled anger, “you are under the impression that because you are technically my boss that I am in some way obligated to follow your every whim.  Let me set you straight.  Just because I work for you doesn’t mean you get to order me about personally too.  I’m leaving.”   With a tug, she extricated her hand from his grasp.  

Knowing that he couldn’t stop Donna from walking out of the room and his life, personally speaking, he clung to the idea that she was still going to work for him.  “So, you’re not leaving right?  You’re still my assistant?

She glared at him and for a fraction of a second he thought she was going to hit him.

“Don’t worry, Josh; I’m still your assistant.”

With those last words, she walked out of his office.  Josh had a horrible feeling that he had just made the worst decision of his life.

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

Donna refused to breakdown; she wouldn’t give Josh the satisfaction of letting him see how much he had hurt her.  She sat at her desk, just a few feet outside his closed office door, and willed her emotions in place.  The tears threatened to overflow and run down her cheeks, so she lowered her head against her knees in an attempt to calm herself.  If anyone was watching her, it would look like she was searching through her desk drawers for some unknown item.  She had just wrapped her arms around her knees, when unexpectedly a sharp burst of laughter escaped from her, dying quickly on a broken note.  The situation wasn’t funny, it was heartbreaking and sad, but she refused to cry any more tears.  In a perverse way, she did see the dark humour in the situation.  She had run away from Wisconsin, she had been a pathetic creature who had let a man use and abuse her and her trust for nearly 3 years.  When she arrived in New Hampshire, she thought she had found an opportunity to find herself, find her confidence; instead, she got herself entangled with another man who saw her as nothing more than a warm body. 

Oh, Josh had said all the right things without making any actual promises.  He had whispered how he loved waking up next to her, but suggested it would be better if they kept their relationship a secret.  And she had agreed to this arrangement like, like...like the stupid, young, naive girl she was.  It was like her father always said, never trust a politician.  

Well, at least she was being dumped by a higher class of guy this time, she thought bitterly.  First a doctor, then a politician; if she kept up this pattern maybe she could be used by royalty next.  

Well at least she knew the truth now.  The truth really could kill you.  Or at least break your heart.

*****

That night, as the advanced polling numbers had accurately predicted, Governor Bartlett won the California primary.  The rented hotel suite was overflowing with music, laughter, alcohol, and happiness.  With the Illinois win, combined with tonight’s victory, it was obvious that what was once a pipe dream was becoming reality.  Governor Bartlett was going to be the democratic nominee for president.  Although it was far from official, if the numbers went the way all the polling data suggested, they were about to run the table before the democratic convention.  Simply put, Hoynes didn’t stand a chance. 

Donna was positively euphoric.  She couldn’t believe this was actually happening.  While she might be disillusioned with her personal life, she couldn’t deny that working on this campaign, helping to get Governor Bartlett elected was a worthy mission.  She was so happy, she needed to hug someone.  Every nerve ending in her body screamed at her to run over and throw her arms around Josh.  But she refused to make a spectacle by literally throwing herself at a man who had made it very clear only a few hours earlier that he had no interest in her.  She might have absolutely no sense when it came to picking men, but she did have self respect, so she threw her arms around the first friendly face she recognized: Sam.

Unbeknownst to Donna, Josh was having the same conflicting thoughts run through his head on the other side of the suite.  His hands twitched from wanting to take her in his arms, feel her soft and comforting body pressed against his, inhale the intoxicating mix of shampoo and a smell that was uniquely Donna.  However, Josh made no attempt to move closer to her; although, he tried to convince himself that one hug in the middle of a celebration wouldn’t hurt anyone, he was afraid that as soon as his hands came into contact with her, he would breakdown and confess how stupid he was to push her away and beg for another chance.

All of this was a moot point really, because he was fairly sure that if he tried to hold Donna, she’d probably just walk away from him, which is exactly what he deserved.  Although knowing that did nothing to quiet the anger and jealousy that burst inside him upon seeing Donna throw herself into Sam’s arms. 

Earlier in the day, during that horrible conversation that Donna had walked in on, Sam had implied that if Josh wasn’t interested he would ask out Donna.  Surely he had said that only to get Josh riled up, Sam couldn’t be serious about wanting to go out with Donna.  But why wouldn’t Sam be serious?  Donna was a beautiful, quick witted, open hearted, caring, sweet girl.  What man wouldn’t be interested? 

Unable to stomach seeing Donna pressed up against Sam any longer, Josh turned and walked out of the suite.  

*****  

After a much-deserved night of revelry, the campaign staff boarded their private plane to fly back to New Hampshire.  There would be a little down time before the democratic national convention and Leo thought it best to return to the Governor’s home state in order to give the campaign staff a chance to re-energize and the governor a chance to rest.

Donna slowly boarded the plane; her body ached in places she didn’t even know could ache.  She had been awake for 20 hours straight, plus she was only averaging 3 to 4 hours of sleep a night so her body was loudly protesting the shabby way it had been treated lately.  She quietly walked up the aisle, entering the semi-private rows of seating designated for senior staff.  While she didn’t want to sit near Josh, she knew that if she took a seat with the rest of the volunteer campaign staff at the other end of the plane a red flag would immediately go up, alerting others that something was wrong between the campaign’s dynamic duo.  She didn’t want the hassle or meddling that was sure to come from CJ and Sam, even if they had the best of intentions.

Despite the need to maintain the status quo, Donna knew she wasn’t strong enough to actually sit next to Josh.  What if she fell asleep on his shoulder?  While that had been one of her favourite things about flying, she would be mortified if she woke up draped all over him.  So it was lucky that Governor Bartlett had such a small number of senior staff which enabled Donna to take a whole row of seats to herself.

Donna saw the familiar curly brown-red head of hair in front of her.  Josh was sitting on the left side of the plane in his usual window seat.  He had always let Donna sit on the aisle because, as he joked, she had the world’s smallest bladder, so she needed to get up frequently to make trips to the washroom and he got sick of her making him get up so she could walk by.

She stopped at the row of seats directly behind Josh, close enough that no one would notice anything was off; yet, far enough away that unless he turned his body 180 degrees, any conversation between the two would be difficult.  She grabbed a few items from her bag and then quickly stowed her carry-on in the overhead compartment.  She futilely went about making her seat as comfortable as possible.  Her first order of business was to ensure she wouldn’t be disturbed.  She made a pillow from her spring jacket so she could rest her head against the airplane window.  Next, she grabbed a thin, yet comfortable blanket, which she had had in her carry-on, and covered herself.  She carefully reclined the two seats as to not disturb or crowd anyone behind her and then hunkered down until she found a relaxing position.

Once she was satisfied with her position, she closed her eyes and slowed her breathing, effectively sending out a ‘do not disturb’ signal to all the other airplane passengers.  Now that she actually had some alone time with her thoughts, Donna felt more confused than ever.  She was unsure of her position within the campaign.  Although Josh had emphatically stated that he wanted her to remain as his assistant, wouldn’t that make their working relationship awkward?  Going from boss-assistant, to friends, to lovers (argh, she hated the word ‘lovers’, it sounded so disturbing) back to their original professional relationship all within a month.  She knew she wanted to keep working on the campaign, she felt so fulfilled helping the governor that she refused to run away from her life because of a man again.  Maybe she could see if she could transfer departments.  Technically she was still a volunteer, so maybe she could volunteer to work with Sam or CJ.  As Donna worked through the thoughts in her head, she was eventually overtaken by the need for sleep.  She would wait to make any major decisions until they landed in New Hampshire and returned to work at the Manchester office.

*****

It was late evening, soon turning into night, and Donna sat at her desk, typing up a memo on her computer, her mind totally unfocused on what she was doing.  Josh was in a meeting with two unidentified men and he had instructed her before the meeting even began to interrupt them 5 minutes in, no matter what.  They had returned to work 2 days earlier and despite her intentions to volunteer for another department, Donna had yet to make an attempt at actually leaving Josh to work for another area of the campaign.  This was mainly due to their new, yet at the same time old, relationship.  The interactions between her and Josh were...strange to say the least.  It was as if Josh was pretending they had never slept together, as though he had never called her a naive chatterbox.  Josh talked to her with his same flirting banter as his always had.  Being back at the Manchester office reminded Donna of the first day they met.  It seemed like it was just yesterday, but at the same time, also like it was years ago that she had hired herself and then convinced Josh to keep her around.

Maybe everything could be forgotten.  Josh had told her during their first meeting that there was nothing that he took more seriously than a campaign for the president.  Which made sense when compared their trivial personal life and electing a new leader for their country, it was pretty easy to see how the scales wouldn’t tip in Donna’s favour.  So she also tried to act like nothing had happened.  Maybe this was how people acted after they had a campaign fling, nonchalant, as though they had never seen each other naked.  She knew she didn’t want to waste time being angry with Josh, it was too much negative energy that she just didn’t have time for.  She would take her cue from Josh and just focus on their professional objective: Get Governor Bartlett elected president.  

However, there were times when she would be working in the office and she would swear that she could feel herself being watched.  When she had looked for the source of the observation she would find Josh staring at her.  She would swear she could see...longing or was it desire in his brown eyes.  Or maybe she was just projecting.  Maybe she just wanted to see those emotions in his eyes; she wanted to see some evidence that ending their relationship had hurt him as much as it had hurt her. 

Finished with her day dreaming, she looked up at the clock on the wall, it was past time for her to go rescue Josh.  She stood up, pushed back her chair and knocked on the door to Josh’s office before entering the room.

“Sorry, Josh.  You have that meeting with Leo.”

“Yeah.  Thanks.  Sorry gentlemen, we will have to continue this conversation later, it seems my assistant scheduled my meetings too close together.”

While Donna didn’t mind getting Josh out of the meeting, she wasn’t going to be made to look incompetent.

“Oh, well, I could probably rescheduled Leo until later –“

“No,” Josh practically screamed, waving a hand back and forth to emphasise his point.  “You don’t keep the campaign manager waiting.  Plus, these guys are so busy they probably have to get going anyway.”  Josh quickly ushered the men out of the room and shut the door behind them.  He turned a glare towards Donna.

Donna glanced toward the door. “Are you sure you don’t want me to reschedule with Leo, I’m sure I can catch them before they leave.”

“You do that and you really are fired,” he threatened.

“I’m not sure how I can be fired from a volunteer position, but I’m pretty sure someone else in the campaign would let me work for them if you don’t want me,” she shrugged.

“I want you.”  He blurted out.  “I mean,” he continued in a rush, “I want you as my assistant.  I should have said thank you for rescuing me.”

“Yes, you should have.”  She continued, choosing to ignore his ‘I want you’ comment. 

“Thank you.  That meeting was so excruciating, I was about to commit suicide by throwing myself out the window.”

“Well, I can see a problem with that.”

“Yeah, we’re on the first floor so jumping out the window probably wouldn’t have killed me.”

“Okay, then I can see two problems with your window plan.”

“What?”

“Your office doesn’t have a window.”

“Smart ass.”

“So what was that meeting about that made you contemplate self-harm?”

 “We were talking about new polling laws as they relate to exit numbers; they thought we should talk some things through before lawyers become involved.” 

She gave him a deadpanned look. “I thought you were a lawyer.”

“You’re such a funny girl.”

“I know,” she said with a wide smile.  “So, since you don’t actually have a meeting with Leo, dare I ask:    Are we done for the night?”

“Are we ever really done?”  Josh pondered, releasing a huge sigh.

“I wasn’t asking existentially, Joshua.  I meant in reality, are we and by ‘we’ I really mean me, since I don’t care so much about you right now, done with work for the evening?”  She stood next to the desk; straightening up the overflowing piles of papers and files he had managed to accumulate in a relatively short period of time.

He looked around the room, there wasn’t anything pressing that needed to be done.  The campaign would be leaving the day after next to head down to the national convention, this year being held in Detroit, so he didn’t really need her to stay.  Hell, he wanted her to stay, she didn’t even have to do any work, just sit beside him so he could enjoy her closeness.  But since that was no longer as option due to his poor decision making skills, he thought it would be nice to let her off early.

“Nah, you’re good.  You can take off.”   

She stopped in front of him and gave him an inquiring look.

He realized he was standing directly in her path to the door, staring at her.  With a herculean effort, he stepped aside to let her exit the room.  When she walked past him, he deliberately leaned into her path so she was forced to brush against him.  The slight touch of her arm against his chest set a little rush of energy through him.

Seemingly unaffected, Donna seated herself back at her desk and moved to retrieve her purse from the bottom door.

“Hey, Donna.”

“Hey, Steve.”

“You leaving?” he indicated with a nod of his head towards the purse in her hand.

“Yeah, my slave driver of a boss let me go early.” 

“Hey!”  Josh protested. “I’m standing right here.”  He glared over at Donna and whoever this gomer was.  Was she smiling at him?  Maybe even flirting?

“Well if you’re on your way out, a bunch of us are heading to McDaniel’s over on Main Street to get something to eat and have a few drinks, you should come too.”  Steve offered politely.

Was this guy asking Donna out right in front of her....her what, he thought.  She’s not yours anymore, an ugly voice in his head yelled back at him.  You let her go, told her you didn’t want her.  How long did you think a beautiful blonde would go unnoticed?  He quickly scanned through his head, thinking of any task he could spring on her to keep her from leaving with this gomer.  That was going to be a hard sell considering he had just told her that she was finished for the night.  Unexpectedly his subconscious screamed at him to stop being an asshole.  Donna deserved a night of drinking and fun.  She deserved to be happy and if going to a bar with what’s-his-name was going to make her happy than he should let her go.  Wasn’t that the reason he broke up with her in the first place, because he wouldn’t be able to devote the time and energy to her as she deserved.

“You should go.  Have some fun.”  Josh said, surprising himself that he managed to keep his voice even.

Donna’s head snapped around.  “Really?  I can go?”

“Yeah, go. Get out of here.”  Not trusting himself any longer, Josh quickly turned and headed back to his office.

Donna was still in shock.  Josh wanted her to go?  He wanted her to go out with Steve.  Go out and drink and dance and flirt with Steve.  

Josh really didn’t care anymore about her.  He was finished with her and was passing her off to the next guy.

Unable to even be in the same room as Josh for a second longer, Donna grabbed her purse.  “Yeah, I’m in.  Let’s go Steve.”

*****

The next morning, Donna was almost half an hour late for work.  When she came in, there were dark circles under her eyes and stress lines on her young face.  She was only 23 years old, but she looked much older.  She put her purse and tote bag down under her desk and looked up as Josh appeared, impatiently, in his doorway.

“Sorry,” she said in a subdued tone.  “I overslept.”

I overslept, she thought to herself, because I couldn’t get to sleep in the first place because I was up half the night crying over you, you arrogant jackass.  She had finally passed out due to sheer exhaustion around 3 am that morning.  She was suspicious of the expression ‘cried myself to sleep’ because based on her own experience last night, crying had only kept her awake and miserable.

His brown eyes narrowed, “Don’t let it happen again.”

He wondered if the reason she had overslept was because of that guy from last night, what was that bastard’s name who had the gall to ask Donna out right in front of him? Seth? Scott?  He didn’t want to focus on that thought for too long, but he wasn’t too surprised that he was thinking it.  He needed to get a handle on his feelings for her.  He had made his decision.  She was just his assistant now.  Her private life was none of his business anymore. 

Unknowingly, Josh was half right. Donna had gone out with Steve, but she had only had one drink and then went back to the hotel.  She had made the decision that she needed to focus on herself.  That was the original reason she had left Wisconsin in the first place.  No more men!  She was committed to the campaign; she couldn’t handle any more distractions, so there would be no more drinks with Steve and no more, whatever the hell had happened, with Josh.

Before any more conversation could occur between the two, Leo walked up to them.

“Hey Josh. Hey Kid.”  Leo said in greeting.

“Hey, Leo.  What’s up?”

“I need you to head to Detroit today.  In a few hours actually, I need you to go to some back-tie DNC dinner thing tonight and talk to Barry Goodwin.  The Governor is going to stay here for the night and we’ll meet you in Detroit tomorrow as we originally planned.”

“Sure, no problem.  I’ll get Donna to book me a flight right now.”

“Great.  Have her book two tickets.”

“What?”

“Donna’s going with you.  You think I trust you on your own?”  With that last parting shot, Leo ambled back towards his office.

Choosing not to think too much about being sent on a trip alone together, Donna quickly and efficiently booked two hotel rooms and two airplane tickets on the next flight to Detroit. 

“You better go back to the hotel and pack a few things.  Umm, do you have any cocktails dresses you can bring?  Oh, can you also go to my room and grab my tux and a few other things I might need.”

“So, what you mean is, ‘Donna, go pack for me’.”  She shot back, altogether uncomfortable with the notion of being isolated with Josh for the next 24 hours.

“Please?”  He added in a pathetic tone.

“Fine,” she huffed and shot out of her chair.  She grabbed her coat and took off down the street towards their hotel.  Her mind was reeling.  She tried not to think about the last time they had been sent somewhere alone.  That night in Florida came rushing back.  The storm, the dancing is his room, the sex.  Well, one thing was for sure, there was no way she was going to let herself repeat any of the mistakes she had made in Florida.  This trip was 100 percent work only.  No time for any personal feelings of any kind.  

*****

 “Come on, Donna.  Hurry up.”  Josh yelled at the bathroom door.  They were going to be late if they didn’t get moving soon.  He had let himself into Donna’s room through the connecting door only to find the room empty.  She was still in the washroom getting ready.

“Since when are you excited to go to a stuffy black tie dinner?”  She yelled back through the door.

“I have one directive: speak with Barry Goodwin.  As soon as I’m done with that, we can get the hell out of there.  So my mind set is the faster we get there, the faster we can get back to the safety of our hotel rooms.”  Josh continued their conversation through the door.

“Okay, I’m ready.”  Donna proclaimed and swept into the room, exiting from the bathroom.

He realized his was staring, but he couldn’t help it.  She was perfection in a deep violet gown that sparkled when it caught the light.  The dress was long and form fitting, with a deep V in the front that highlighted her breasts.  

He had this horrible feeling that he was destined to always feel this thrill of energy and desire whenever she entered a room for the rest of his life.

You belong with me. 

The words entered his subconscious instantly and without warning.  He knew he meant every word.  How could he have been so stupid to think he could ever let her go?  However, this was probably not the right time to say any of his thoughts out loud.  More determined than ever, Josh needed to get to the ballroom, find Barry Goodwin as quickly as possible, then he could drag Donna back to his hotel room (with a nice king sized bed) and beg for her forgiveness.

“Do you want to take me to bed?”  she asked.

“What??” He squeaked. 

“I said, do you want a hit to the head?”

“What?”

“Your face is stuck in an odd way, kinda like an old television set when the picture is frozen so you gotta smack the side of the screen to get it back in focus.”

“That’s what my face was like?” 

“Yeah, so I thought if I gave you a good hit to the head your face would go back to normal,” she finished with a sly smirk. 

Eventually he pulled himself together and crossed the room to take her hand.

“You look stunning.” He stated in a voice that allowed no room for argument.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“All right, let’s get this over with.”  Josh stated in a depressed tone.

While Josh might not be planning to stay long at the DNC event, he had taken the time to change into his tuxedo, Donna noticed.  The elegantly cut coat and trousers combined with the snow-white shirt underscored his muscular arms and gave him an indescribable aura of power that always seemed to surround him.

“Ladies first,” Josh intoned as he offered Donna his left arm and lead her down the hallway to the elevator.

TBC.....


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to everyone for reading. I hope you enjoyed the story!

Donna stood at the edge of the ballroom watching the men in their tuxedo powwow and the women in their ball gowns circle the room, mingling, making sure they were seen talking to the right person.  These events weren’t just for the political movers; they were also for the social climbers who wanted to be seen in the right company.  This ballroom was a long way away from Madison, Wisconsin. 

While the bloom had definitely not fallen off the rose in terms of novelty of the event, Donna was not in the right mind set to enjoy this particular evening.  She was still trying to sort of her feelings concerning being there in the first place.  One part of her just wanted to get the damn thing over with so she could go back to her hotel room and order overly priced room service, but the other part of her wanted to enjoy the limited time she had alone with Josh, actually pretend that they were there together as a couple as opposed to boss and assistant who used to sleep together but don’t anymore because said boss was a selfish jackass.  You know, that old story.

Donna had lost sight of Josh about an hour ago.  She knew he was on a mission to get something from Barry Goodwin on Leo’s orders, but once they had arrived at the ballroom Josh had taken off.  Donna wandered over to a waiter who was holding flutes of champagne on a platter in his hand.  Donna grabbed a glass and fought the urge to down it in one gulp. She turned her attention over to the dance floor and made eye contact with the last person she expected to see.

“Hello Donna.”

“Hello Mandy.  I didn’t realize you were going to be here tonight.”

“I could say the same for you.”

“I’m here with Josh.  He’s somewhere browbeating Barry Goodwin.”

“I know, I saw him before.”

An uneasy quiet settled between the two women.  They didn’t know each other well, they had little in common besides both working for the Bartlett campaign, and both having slept with Josh, although that was a topic of conversation that was unlikely to come up.  

“I hate these things,” Mandy said suddenly.

“Really?  I figured this is where you get your business done.”

“It is, but it can be exhausting, everyone’s playing a role, no one’s says what they mean, which is probably their best bet since the majority of the people here are morons.  Especially the women, each one is made up more than the next, fake hair, fake breasts, each vying to be the next up-and-comers new trophy wife.  And the men, well, they’re just looking for the next easy lay.”  

Donna looked around the room; she could immediately spot the women Mandy was referring to.   Some had already obviously achieved their trophy wife goals judging by the inordinate amount of 50 year old men and their 20 something wives.

“Well, not all the women here are looking for a husband and not every man here is looking for, you know, sex.”  Donna practically whispered the last word.  Sometimes Donna really wished she wasn’t so awkward. 

Mandy picked up a glass of champagne and turned her attention to the other side of the ballroom.  “If you are talking about Josh, you’re probably right.”

Donna really didn’t feel comfortable getting into a conversation about Josh with his ex-girlfriend, but she just couldn’t help herself, “Why?”

“Josh Lyman is such a complicated man that he is actually pretty simple to figure out.”

“It that your way of saying that he will never get married?”

“I understand that you’ve spent a lot of time with him lately on the campaign trail.  But you must realize that he doesn’t view the world, you know, in the way normal people do.”

Donna thought about Josh’s habit up showing up at her hotel room door whenever he felt like it, and that was before they were together.

“He doesn’t follow the usual rules of etiquette,” Donna conceded.

“He knows how to behave himself when pressed.  He grew up in Westport, Connecticut, that’s all old money, so he’s not without manners.  He is just impatient with others to the point of rudeness when he thinks he’s dealing with what he views as the opposition.  Plus, he hates these black-tie social gatherings, too much ass kissing for his liking.”

“Well-”

“Oh, he’ll get married, of course.”  Mandy continued as though Donna never spoke.  “He’ll eventually find some spineless twit who doesn’t mind being second to politics.  Honestly, I don’t think he will even care; he’s not the type to fall in love really.  He will put a ring on someone’s finger, get her pregnant, and then return to his office to come up with his latest political maneuver.”

“You’re not giving him a lot of credit.”

“I used to date the man remember.”

“No offense, but I think you’re wrong.”

“Well, you want me to be wrong, don’t you?”  Mandy stated pointedly.

Defending Josh and explaining his behaviour had quickly become a habit for Donna in the 3 months she had known the man, which was entirely unnecessary because Josh was more than capable of defending himself, plus Josh couldn’t care less about the opinion of others.

In reality, Donna had no idea what she was doing.  Josh’s earlier behaviour had confused her, once again.  The way he had looked at her in the hotel room earlier when she came out of the bathroom, there was desire and lust in his eyes.  Donna was thankful that she had asked CJ to borrow the dress she now wore.  Her trusty black cocktail dress had served faithfully and well, but Donna felt that it was time for a change and had asked CJ to borrow something to which CJ had handed over the purple gown. 

A sudden jolt of awareness knocked her out of her daydreaming.  She looked across the ballroom and saw Josh staring back at her.  He stood next to Barry Goodwin, looking decidedly unhappy.

“Ah, there’s Josh.”  Mandy pointed out unnecessarily.

“Yes, I see him.” Donna said, really just so she could say something.  She didn’t feel like letting Mandy have the last word for some reason.

Josh turned to Barry Goodwin, muttered something, and made his way across the ballroom towards Donna.  Seeing that he was on his way over to them, Mandy quietly made her exit.

“What the hell you were talking to Mandy about?”  Josh said when he reached Donna, not even bothering with the pretense of a proper greeting.

“And a very nice evening to you too, Josh,” Donna responded dryly.

Instantly his eyes softened, “Will you honour me with a dance?”  He asked as though he hadn’t just been unbearably rude 10 seconds earlier.

“No.”  

She didn’t mean for her reply to come out so abruptly, but she didn’t particularly feel like subjecting herself to the stares of the ballroom.

“But, they’re playing our song.”

“We don’t have a song,” she pointed out correctly.

“No, but we do have a dance.  This song is supposed to be danced to as a waltz.”

Involuntarily she took in a sharp gasp of air.  She felt her face blush a deep red and felt helpless to stop the colour from spreading its way down her body.  She felt mortified.  How dare he bring up their night together in a room full of strangers and his ex-girlfriend?

“Sorry, it’s been a while since I danced the waltz and I have come to realize that I don’t like it as much as I thought I did.”

“Please say that’s not true, you like the waltz just fine, I promise this time I won’t trip over your feet.  I’ll let you lead this dance.”

Only the two of them could have a conversation about the waltz that had absolutely nothing to do with the waltz.

“Please”

Two pleases from Josh in a span of 10 seconds had got to be some kind of record. 

He took her hand and pulled her towards the dance floor before she could protest any further without making a scene.  Suddenly she was in his arms again.  He swept her into the slow pattern of the waltz.  Josh’s hand was warm on the small of her back, and he was looking at her as though they were the only two people in the room.  

“The pattern of the waltz is not the sort of thing a person could forget in only a few weeks,” Josh said.

Once again, she felt that their conversation had absolutely nothing to do with the waltz. 

Donna felt her body move through the patterns of the waltz involuntarily, she was still angry at him for dragging her out to the dance floor so she refused to look him in the eyes, instead choosing to focus on the wall beyond his shoulder.

“Donna?”

“Yes?”  She answered, still not making eye contact.

“I was, god – I thought maybe after this thing is over we could – shit!”

Donna’s head snapped up at the abrupt change in subject.  She followed Josh’s eye line and saw him looking at Barry Goodwin, who appeared as though he was making his exit for the night.

“Donna, I have to go.  I still haven’t done what Leo asked yet.”  He said as he released her arms and moved over to the edge of the dance floor.

Donna turned and decided that she had had enough fun, if you could call it that, for one night.  If Josh was going to get wrapped up into another endless argument with Barry Goodwin then she was going back to her hotel room.

“Where are you going?”  

“Back to the room.”  Donna explained in an exasperated tone. “I’m tired and you’re off on your Leo mission, which you don’t need me for, so I’m going to go get my pjs on.”

“You’re not going to wait for me?”

“You want me to wait for you?  You’re going off for God knows how long, to talk about God knows what, and you want me to stay here and wait for you like some kind of loyal dog?”  

“Well, when you put it like that: no?”  He said, although it came out as more of a question than a statement.

“Good night, Josh.  I’ll see you in the morning.”  She turned to leave.

“Wait.  I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, but, damn it, when I’m done can I come see you?”  

“Josh, it might be really late when you’re done.”  She explained evenly.

“I know,” he conceded, “but can I come anyway?”

She should say no, everything inside of her was screaming no.  There was no way she should stay up and wait for Josh to come visit her in her hotel room in the middle of the night. 

No. 

No. 

No.

“Okay,” she said quietly and turned to exit the ballroom before she had a chance to change her mind.  

She practically ran to her room once she exited the elevator.  How could she have said yes?  Not even 24 hours earlier she was telling herself to forget about Josh, forget about men in general and yet here she was waiting in a hotel room for Josh.

She wanted to scream, but since that wasn’t a viable option she turned her attention to the task at hand.  Josh was coming to see her.  He wanted to talk.  Talk about what?  Their working relationship? That didn’t seem likely given the way he had been staring at her all night, there was nothing professional in the way he had been looking at her.  Did he think he could turn those brown eyes at her and she would fall into bed with him again?  Arrogant jackass probably thought she would.  Argh!

Well, she would show him, she would wait a little while, certainly not all night, and when he did stop by she would be completely polite but professional.  In that vein, should she get changed?  Her options were to change into her pajamas, which seemed too intimate, or put on some casual clothes, which seemed like a waste of time, plus then he would know that she had changed for him.  The other option was to remain in her ball gown, which suited Donna fine since it was actually pretty comfortable.   Before she could make a final clothing decision, a sharp knock on the door interrupted her thoughts.

She walked over and opened the door, surprised to see Josh on the other side.

“Hey...um, can I come in?” 

She moved away from the doorway, giving him silent permission to enter.

“That didn’t take long,” she commented.

 “Yeah, well I had great motivation to get it over with quickly.”

She didn’t want to ask what his motivation was; if it was her he was going to have to say it himself.  She had decided she wasn’t going to make this easy for him.  He had jerked her around too much the last few weeks for her to accommodate his mercurial behaviour anymore.  She stood there silently watching him, it had been said that Josh had a terrible poker face and judging by the multitude of emotions crossing his face Donna couldn’t agree with the statement more.

Suddenly he spoke, “I screwed up.”

“With Barry Goodwin?” she asked, slightly confused at the change in topic.  She was the only one allowed to jump from topic to topic.

“No, things with Goodwin are fine.  I screwed up with you.  With us,” he clarified.

“There is no us Josh, not the way you mean.”  

“I know, and that’s because I screwed things up.”

“Josh, I don’t want to have this conversation.  I’m tired, my feet hurt –“

“Please,” he cut her off, “I need to say these things, I need for you to understand and if after I’m finished talking you still think there’s no us, then...,” he trailed off.

She was probably making the wrong decision, but… 

“Fine.”

“Okay, great. Here’s the thing, my whole life all I ever wanted to do was work in politics, even when I was too young to understand what a chief of state or a political strategist was I knew that’s what I wanted to be.  I started working for Hoynes and while he’s a solid politician, he’s nothing memorable.  In 50 years, no one will be talking about his contributions.  But I knew that there was someone like that, and if I could find that guy I could make him president, and the rest...the rest would fall into place.”  He took a deep breath and continued.  “When I saw Governor Bartlett first speak, I knew, you know, I just knew. He’s the real deal.  I had a mission.  My one goal was getting that man elected president.  I was 100 percent focused on the task at hand.  And I still know that we are going to get the nomination and he is going to get elected.  But the thing is my focus, it not so 100 percent anyone.”

“Why not?”  She spoke quietly, afraid to get her hopes up.

“Because one day I walked into my office and met an amazing women answering my phone and pretending she worked for me.”

“So, I’m a distraction?” she questioned.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” he conceded.

“That doesn’t really sound like a compliment.”

“It wasn’t mean to be one.  I was simply stating a fact.  You distract me in the best possible way.  Before you, my whole life was politics, I never wanted it any other way, but since I’ve met you I realized that while I still want a life in politics.  I want my life to include you.”

“I’ve heard this before, Josh.  In Florida, you said you wanted to be with me and then you let me go, you pushed me away.  You said horrible things about me to Sam,” she broke off with a choked cry and turned away.  She wasn’t going to cry in front of him.  “The other night you practically handed me over to another guy like I was some kind of toy that you had grown tired of.  If I am the best possible distraction why did you let me go?”

“Because I didn’t think you were mine to keep.  I didn’t think I deserved you.  You need someone you isn’t a workaholic; I thought you deserved so much more than what I could give you.”

“So, you just made a unilateral decision about what we were going to be?”

“I thought I was doing what was best.”

“If you want this, if you want us, we can’t be boss and assistant in our personal lives too.  You don’t get to decide what’s best for me.”

“I know.  That’s why I said I screwed up.  I know every decision I made was wrong.”

“Wow, where’s Leo around when you need him?  Josh Lyman admitting that he’s wrong,” she joked lightly.

 “Donna, I need you.  I need you in my life professionally, but more importantly I just need you.  That’s the way that I feel about you, sometimes I wish I didn’t since it would probably make my life a whole lot easier, but I also think that you feel the same way.  I think you need me too.”

She knew she was taking a risk, he had already hurt her once before, but she couldn’t lie to him either.

“Oh,” she whispered. “Yes, I think I do feel the same.” She conceded, rather reluctantly.

“Thank God.”

Josh quickly reached out and pulled her to him.  It was almost a little painful, but Donna didn’t care because Josh was kissing her.  His mouth slide off hers and found her throat.  Just as soon as his mouth placed an open kiss to the base of her throat, his mouth returned to hers again, searing and hungry.  It was as if he couldn’t make up his mind which part of Donna he wanted to taste more.

Donna made the decision for him; she wrapped her arms around Josh’s neck and opened her mouth for him. She let her tongue slide against his bottom lip, she couldn’t believe how badly she needed to feel him, it seemed like more than only a week had passed since they had been together.  It took her a few seconds to realize that Josh had lifted her off her feet and was carrying her over to the bed.

He kissed her again and then turned her gently so that her back was to him.  He began to lower the zipper of her dress.  Within moments, the gown was open, exposing her back to him.  He kissed her bare shoulder, moved lower, placing soft kisses down her spine.

He turned her back to face him again and gently lowered her dress, taking the material from around her waist and pulling it down until her dress pooled around her feet.  She stood in front of him in a strapless bra, stockings, and high heels.

Realizing that she had been passively letting Josh undress her, she unbuttoned his tuxedo jacket and pushed her hands inside, thrilled at the feel of his muscles and the heat radiating off his body.  Josh shrugged out of his jacket, quickly pulled apart his bowtie, and started to undo the buttons of his shirt.  At the sight of his exposed skin, Donna flattened her palms again his bare chest.

 “You are so beautiful,” he said.

“You make me feel beautiful.” 

She held out her hand and he gripped her fingers and allowed her to pull him down on the bed with her.  He stretched out alongside her, half covering her body and closed one hand over the curve of her breast.  He gently massaged the area overflowing from the cups of her bra.  He bent his head to take one breast into his mouth.  She heard a soft, choked cry and realized it had come from her.

He found the little noises she was making so arousing that he leaned over and kissed her slowly, reverently as if he could shallow the sounds.  She softened against him, thrilled at feeling his hard, heavy weight pressed against her again.  Every placed he touched her, she could feel heat sear through her.

 “I need to feel you,” he whispered.

She parted her legs for him, giving him greater access.  His warm palm inched along her stockings to the bare skin above her garter.  He stroked her gently, finding the sensitive area almost immediately.  She drew in a sharp breath, every muscle tightening.  Instinctively, she slid her hand down his body to reach the zipper of his tuxedo pants.  When her hand reached its destination, she discovered he had already undone the zipper.  Her hand immediately found the heavy, rigid length of his erection.

“Come for me,” he said.  He moved his hand on her again but it was hardly necessary, the heat in his words generated more than enough power to send her over the edge, the tight ball of tension inside of her released in a white flash of light.

Finally, when he couldn’t stand another minute, he entered her, thrusting slowly, deeply.  She dug her nails into his shoulder and whimpered softly.  

“Donna.”  His voice was ragged.

Donna opened her eyes and was surprised to see him watching her with such searing intensity that she felt tears burn the back of her eyes.  

“I need you. I’ll always need you.” He swore.

*****

Later as they lay together, Josh spoke quietly.  “I meant what I said before, you are the one leading.”

“What do you mean?” she asked with confusion in her voice.

“However, you want us to be. You lead, I follow.  You want to tell Leo about us, it’s done.  You want to keep this quiet until after the election, that’s fine too.  As long as we are together, you make the final decision.”

A soft smile crept across her face; she opened her mouth to speak but then closed it again.  He could see the thoughts swirling around in her head, the uncertainty in her eyes as though she was unsure of her next words. Finally she spoke. “I just want you to love me.” She whispered.

“Donna, loving you is the easy part.”  

A radiant smile broke out on her face, “Well, then we’ll figure the rest out together.”

“You bet your ass we will,” Josh promised.

The End 


End file.
